Tears of the Sun
by Chichiro Ketsueki
Summary: A twist enters a teenage girl's life as a certain fire youkai makes an appearance. Makaian soldiers have begun to invade the living world for unknown reasons. He comes to her asking for help, because she's hiding her own secret...about him.
1. Hiei's Arrival

**Authoress's Note:** Originally, the first and second chapter of this were several other chapters, which I have since decided to re-form and add on to (To explain some loose ends and unclear things.) and then join with the other first few chapters. This used to be broken into 'Introductions Are In Order', 'Kaze saw _Who_!' and 'An Eventful Night.'

**Disclaimer:** Neither Hiei or YuYu Hakusho are mine. The song 'Tourniquet' is copyright to Evanescence.

**Claimer:** Chichiro and Ketsue are mine, Kaze is BritKit, Aria is FoxWitch. While not all the characters are mine, all writing, storylines and concepts in this fanfiction (Save any YYH references) are (This includes Nirvana, Spike, all shadowcats, the shadowcat species, Escque, Mahdaegrahs/entities, scorpios etcetera.).

* * *

_Yusuke stood silently behind Juri._

"_He did it!" Koenma cried._

"_We are free," Kurama commented, grinning._

"_Hn," was of course Hiei's answer._

"Yay!"

I glanced over at Kaze, my best friend since sixth grade, sweat-dropping. It was all _way_ too sentimental for my liking, and I'd seen this episode enough times that the short-lived relief the first time I'd watched it was long gone. YuYu Hakusho had been my favorite TV show since I saw the first episode back in third grade (Which happened to be the one featuring Kuwabara having all of his limbs and ribs snapped by Rando. I have to admit, when I was that young, I had been appalled by the sight and almost didn't watch it again.), but I did get rather bored sometimes with the Toguro brothers and any story arc involving or centering solely on them. The only good part of the fight between Yusuke and the younger Toguro was that Hiei was often in the background and commenting every long once and a while.

Aria (My second best friend, whom I'd met through Kaze) and I exchanged unenthusiastic looks as the brown-haired teen before us began to celebrate in a manner greatly resembling a tap dance before the TV.

"Get out of my way," I snapped, and Kaze glared at me before sitting down on the floor, her large grin returning.

Damn sentimental humans… 

My story begins in the summer of 2004, when I was thirteen by human years. I was, by all physical evidence, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, easily irritated human girl. I guess I should say here that I always knew I was different or that someone had come to me and told me I wasn't human, or so the clichés tell. But this tale is a bit different. Sure, I didn't know until a year before this story takes place, but for now, that's unimportant. For now I will only say that during the time you'll read, I knew that I wasn't human, that I was a death element—meaning that ghosts and spirits and dead…_things_ were drawn to me, and that I (generally)liked them back—and that I had an eight-thousand-year-old yami named Aletta in my head. I also just happened to have nine spirits living in my house, and one banshee who followed me everywhere. I just called her Banshee, to my friend's annoyance.

I'm occasionally asked by the few people who know what I am how I can stay calm around the dead things that hang around my house. Oftentimes, I don't answer. I just quote my favorite fire demon. "_Hn_." The reason I'm so calm, which I decide against alerting my Oh-so-intelligent friends to, is because the spirits like me, and I like them. Mutual. I'm a death element, damn fools.

As I said, to anyone outside the chosen few humans and non-humans I called friends, I was a thirteen-year-old (At this point, writing this, I'm fifteen. It's odd to look back so far, now.), completely average girl. This of course meant average for my friendship group, which on the whole was not too average in any way shape or form. I had a short temper and was quick to snap at those who annoyed me (much to my downfall that included teachers, parents, and siblings), I was generally sarcastic at every chance to be, and I had an annoying knack to make people laugh when I was dead serious about something.

Enough with explanations. They bore me, and I'm sure they bore you.

"Kaze, be quiet a moment, will you? I'm _attempting _to watch the damn show."

I snickered as Aria put in her fair-share of words, but said nothing to support her irritability toward Kaze. Aria was a deeply-tanned, quite pretty Egyptian girl. She had black hair and dark eyes, and I learned shortly after meeting her that she's not quite human either. Turns out that she is a mage. Her true self lived two thousand (she's a child when her age is compared with the length of my existence) years ago. She was the Pharaoh's priestess.

And Kaze? Well, she was a puzzle. No one really knew _what_ the hell she was back then. Some said she was human (I called her such regardless), and others said she wasn't. All that could be sure was that she was not _quite_ human, and her element was wind. As far as appearances go, she has shoulder-length, curly brown hair. She's pretty as well. I hate them both for it.

Kaze turned to glare briefly at Aria before sitting down and sulking. She quickly forgot her moodiness when Kurama flashed across the screen and was easily back to being engrossed in the show.

I sighed lightly as the next episode began to play. I'd seen this specific set of episodes a million times. Kaze and Aria had only seen the tape a few-thousand times, though, so I let them watch it.

"Where are you going?" Aria asked as I walked toward the door; Kaze was too into the show, and simply told us both to shut up.

"Out," I growled, not even turning around to face her as I responded.

I immediately relaxed when my feet met the wet ground outside. It was raining. I love rain, and it was no surprise why when one of my most precise abilities was known—I could cause the rain if I desired to. Whenever I was upset over something or just simply want it to rain, it would. Slight drizzle to pouring, depending on my mood or want. Right now it was pouring.

I pulled myself onto the first branch of my guardian tree, climbing like a leopard the rest of the way up. Sitting down right under the perfect umbrella of leaves, I wondered again at how my entire body matched the tree's lines. Even the branches molded perfectly relative to my feet so that I could walk anywhere and not fall off. This tree was my 'mother', my teacher, and I had known her for several years and was glad for it. Her roots grew in the soil beside my house, and her tallest branches passed by the window on the side of my room upstairs as they reached for sunlight.

I suddenly opened my eyes, growling as a foreign scent hit my nostrils. I was used to strange smells once and a while, true, but this was in _my_ guardian tree. And I'd be damned if anyone climbed her without mine or her permission.

I smelled her trunk the deepest I could without feeling like a bloodhound, closing my eyes and placing my hands on her giant wise bulk. _Who has been climbing you?_ I asked.

'_T was a fire demon,_ answered the soft rustling of her leaves slowly. It takes a tree a long time to say anything.

My eyes widened. _A demon?_ I honestly had never met a demon in this modern world. Aria's darker side, Seera, was the closest thing to one that I'd known in this life time, and she was a long shot in comparison all the same.

What did it look like? 

Human-like…a fiery aura. Other than that, I could not tell anything. He merely passed on me.

How a tree can see or sense, I am yet to find out. But it still royally pissed me off that anyone would disrespect my friend like that.

_Tell me if he comes back_, I said softly, planning to return back inside.

_Comes back?_ she quoted, sounding amused. _He has come every night for the last week.

* * *

_

I uttered a low, muffled sigh as leaned against the pane of the open window in my room. My guardian tree stood there, still and silent as ever, but I could see through her needled branches and to the huge backyard of my neighbor. There was an old barn in their backyard that I often suspected to be unused. Curiosity had always given me the drive to go in there, but I'd never gotten to. I could also see past my guardian tree's branches to my other neighbor's yard—they had nothing interesting save a pool that was inhumanely cold even during the summer because it was concrete.

I blinked back my tears as I sat there, wishing that I could just run and run and run, away from here and away from this human life, never look back. I wanted to chase the seemingly foolish dream of being with Hiei, whom I had never really thought of as only an anime character. I was always like this at night, when my hereditary depression took over. Always. Most oftentimes, I'd sing Evanescence, because her words always seemed to narrate I felt. I could relate to something at the end of almost every line.

"I tried to kill my pain 

_But only brought more (So much more)_

_I lay dying_

_And I'm pouring_

_Crimson regret_

_And betrayal._"

About five months before, I'd fancied that I'd actually seen Hiei. Well, a short silhouette in front of my TV. I'd just woken up, and there was someone standing there, although I still couldn't be sure why and I had to consider it quite random. My lights had been switched off, and though I had semi-accurate night vision that was vastly better than the naked human eye, I could not make out the shape very well and couldn't be sure if I was dreaming or not. Before I was given the chance to focus, the person was gone.

I sometimes doubted that it was an entirely reliable 'sighting', but it had given me hope that my insane idea that Hiei was real was true. I didn't think I was dreaming.

"_I'm dying_

_Praying_

_Bleeding_

_And screaming_

_Am I too lost to be saved?_

_Am I too lost?_"

Suddenly my mother bumped open the door of my room, saying softly to turn down the music because she would be going to sleep soon.

"Fine," I snapped, out of my peaceful mood, and hit the stop button on the controller of my TV (I was using a DVD player to play the songs). Feeling uncomfortable at her hearing me, I decided against restarting where I'd left off. I never sang in front of people. It embarrassed me.

I sighed and went to my bed after Mom left, covering myself. I was wearing my silky black kimono that my father had gotten in New York City and later given to my mom. It had a dragon on the back, and it was older than me. Twenty years old, actually.

I yawned, looking at the window, wishing he—need I say who?—was there. I'd always wished that, and that night had been no exception.

"_My wounds cry for the grave_," I finally sang tentatively, finding that I needed to finish at least a small portion of the song. I had skipped the middle of the song, and went immediately to the ending which had been loudly begging to be sung, "_My soul cries for deliverance_

_Will I be denied? _

Christ

_Tourniquet_

_My suicide…_"

With that, thinking as always of Hiei, I slipped into the gentle bliss of sleep.

* * *

I woke then next morning with a yawn, my eyes chancing to my clock. "Holy shit!" I cried. 3 PM. I yawned again in a cat-like manner, stretched, and wearily pulled myself out of bed, feeling dirty for no particular reason. I sank slowly down the stairs and into the shower, having chosen a black Halloween shirt and jeans with a chain belt. No one was home but me, my dog, my two cats, and my rat. So I sang as I washed myself.

I always took cold showers—I still don't know why, but the warmth of the water had done nothing for me. So I always turn off the hot water fully.

I sang through three or four depressing Evanescence songs before I got out, yanking on my clothes. I hate jeans after showers—they refuse to cooperate. "Do not defy me, damn mortal accessory!" I shouted at them, and finally, amazingly, they pulled on. I sighed and looked up (Heavenward…it's a habit) and smirked, muttering 'Thanks' quickly before I doubled over and tripped over my baggy pant leg. As I lay sprawled on the floor, feeling rather bitter at being dealt the clumsy card, my eyes slid back upward, this time in a less friendly way. "I hate you sometimes," I snarled, and I'm sure He was laughing.

I walked outside for no true reason, picking a few blackberries that grew along my fence and munching on them. And then I had a sudden urge to call Kaze.

Returning inside as quickly as I'd gone out, I picked up the receiver and punched in her number. Ring….Ring….Ring… "Hello?"

Amazing! I thought with thick sarcasm. Someone there IS alive! "Hi," I said to Kaze's mother. Keep in mind I was only courteous on the phone and when the person I was speaking to on the phone was an adult, "may I please speak to Joanna?" 

Joanna is Kaze's human name. Leah is Aria's real name. Rachel is mine. We all called each other different names, however. So did most of my other friends.

"Hey Hi-Chan1," was the response I got as she picked up the phone in the kitchen.

The other line hung up. "I told you not to call me that!" I growled irritably.

"Yeah, yeah…"

Quickly ignoring the nickname, I asked, "Want to have a sleep over tonight?"

"Sure…le' me ask." I heard the receiver drop from beside her mouth as she did before she yelled to ask her parents something, before the mouthpiece snapped back up and she cried, "OH!"

I mentally sweat-dropped. "What now?"

In a clearly excited tone, Kaze began, "You know how you told me you thought you saw Hiei in front of the TV a while ago?"

Kaze was the only person I'd ever told of that instance, and when she said it so plainly, the story sounded more ridiculous than it had felt before. Still, warily, I agreed, "Yeah…"

"I think I saw him today. I was walking to Barnes and Noble and I looked sideways, and there was this little black blur."

I nodded, but realized she couldn't see it on the phone. "I see. Cool!"

"Mmhmm!" She sighed, pausing. Ignoring my earlier single-lined rant, she called me my annoying nickname when she spoke again. "Hi-Chan…I can't help wondering…"

"Yes?" I asked as she stopped again.

"Well, what if we want to see magic so much that we make ourselves see it?"

I sighed, lowering my eyelids in a show of annoyance that no doubt some of my friends would find comic. "It's not that. There was a freakin' person in my _room_, thanks. _You_ may have imagined it, but there was a scent in my room too."

Simply put, her response was, "Oh."

Kaze showed up that night. And what a night we'd have.

* * *

I suppose I should have mentioned something slightly significant. The demon that my Guardian tree told me about has been sleeping in her for the past three days, though I'd never seen him myself. And should I get my hands on that jerk who was taking advantage of her, I'd kick his ass. But every time I thought about it, I got less mad and more hopeful. Suppose my dreams really _were_ paying off?

The strangest thing about my 'stalker' was that I only noticed him when I sang Evanescence; this may just seem like a personal quirk, but the reason I noticed him was because he shifted around when I sang as if to listen better. It was the only time I 'saw' him, and even then I only caught movement and nothing else. Oddly, this wasn't creepy to me and I was forced to ponder if I'd lost my sanity a while back.

Back to that night and not a broader set of days, Kaze and I ate a quick dinner (Enjoying cheesecake cubes afterward) and shuffled up to my room.

As usual, Kaze bugged me to watch YuYu Hakusho, or some anime on the Anime-on-Demand-Network (I love that channel _so_ very much.). Or maybe Wolf's Rain and the anime tapes?

I said no, of course. "I have something to tell you first," I growled, impatient at her insistent begging. "For the last three or so days I've had a stalker at night. Sleeping in my trees." I failed to mention which tree, for no one save another good friend of mine, T'nuviel, knew of my guardian tree. She had one herself, and thus I told her of my own to set more common ground.

"Oh my God." I should mention that Kaze _loved_ to say that. She still does. It was quite possibly was her favorite phrase to say in moments of surprise or excitement.

"And I've sensed him before that," I sighed. Although I haven't said anything before, I can sense energies quite easily and had faintly caught traces of dark energy around my home for a short time before my guardian tree mentioned the demon. I had not sensed anything specific, but it made sense that it had been him I'd picked up when she told me.

"Oh my God," was Kaze's repeated response, and I mentally sweat-dropped. Kaze's eyes were huge by this point. "Do you think it's him?" she finally asked, and she did not need to explain aloud that she meant Hiei. He was on my mind often enough that I recognized mentions of him immediately, whether his name was given or not.

"Who knows?"

I ignored her a moment as I walked over to the DVD player and popped in my Evanescence CD. I turned on the TV, and we remained there for little over an hour, listening to non-stop depressing music. Amazingly enough, Kaze didn't complain as she often did about random things. She loved to listen to Evanescence as well.

* * *

Being that this is my first autobiography of sorts, I find that I'm not surprised that I have realized another thing I've failed to mention thus far. I have an eight-thousand-year-old yami in my head. I know that I've already mentioned Aletta, but not that she chose my mind to reincarnate herself in after she died that many years ago. Luckily enough for me, we are friends and she does not follow the yami role as closely as some others I've known. Namely Seera. She's just even more damn sarcastic than I am. As well, she's braver than me, fears nothing, and she tends to consider every human inferior to her. I suppose in some ways they are, but this way of thinking was brought upon most often by her bitterness toward humans and what they'd done to her in her previous life.

That night, as I sat on my bed and Kaze lounged on the mattress that my mother had brought in from the extra bedroom, we lapsed into speaking again about my 'stalker'.

"It's odd," I said. "He only moves if I sing Evanescence."

Kaze blinked, seeming surprised at this. It was odd, I had to admit. "Cool! We should sing tonight!"

"Freestyle," I continued, and Kaze enthusiasm seemed to have fallen flat. Kaze _never_ sang free-style. She claimed that she had no pitch. She didn't if she wasn't singing with another person or on the DVD player. It was actually quite funny. "He doesn't move if I'm singing with the music." Noting Kaze's expression, I said flatly, "Well, either you'll have to sing, or I will."

"Humph."

I ignored her after that.

Night fell, and I felt sick and tired thank to a random, large amount of cold feelings. My cold feelings mean that something is amiss or that there's evil around. Granted 'evil' things weren't around much, but when they were I wasn't surprised, because, as with spirits, dark creatures are also drawn to me. I'd never gotten them from the person in my tree, despite how I tried to remain angry with him for taking advantage of my Guardian and not answering if I tried to speak to him.

"I feel cold," I muttered to Kaze.

Kaze knew me well enough to understand what this indicated. "Is it him?" she asked, motioning to my window and my demon 'stalker'.

It seemed that night that he had moved to another tree, farther out on my front yard and in a more difficult place for me to see him. "I don't know," I answered honestly after a moment's consideration. "I've never gotten cold feelings from him."

"What feelings _do_ you get, then?" Kaze asked.

I paused. This time I had to think for a moment before responding—how _did_ I feel? "Happiness," I murmured suddenly, feeling quite sad then. It took me a lot to be actually happy. I was rarely sad over anything save my biological, inescapable depression, but even still I could not remember the last time I was genuinely happy.

Kaze said nothing.

I heard a car in my driveway, and my eyes widened. It was my brother. "My brother's leaving," I said quickly to Kaze. She didn't gather the reasoning for my stress, and shrugged. "He shouldn't be leaving now," I said. She finally understood: the cold feelings. He could be in danger if he left for somewhere now.

I went out to my Mom's room, the open hallway making me feel exposed and vulnerable.

"Where's Adam going?" I asked.

"To Tena's." Tena was his girlfriend, and the only girl I'd ever known whose name was spelled 'Tena' rather than the typical 'Tina'. I relaxed. "Why?"

Damn motherly questions…Get me every time… "Wondering," I responded awkwardly, hoping she didn't catch the note in my voice telling her there was more to it. 

"You want him to come back?" my Mom asked, sounding amused.

"No," I said quickly, "just curious."

It was then that my eyes caught sight of movement in my brother's room. I was not one to scream, so I jumped slightly. My eyes widened, and with a quick, "Good night," to my mom, I walked stiffly back to my room, quickly as I could without running.

"It's him," was all I managed to squeak as I got closed the door behind me, leaning against it.

Hiei. My dreams. My Hiei. He was in _my _house. He was wearing the black cloak he had been during the series, though the design of it was changed in a mild way, and his face was shadowed; I had seen his red eyes glaring at me from beneath his dark hair all the same. His right arm was bandaged as always, and in his bandaged hand he'd held his katana. Unsheathed. I could not see him all too well, but he had the same gravity-defying hair and the same crimson, piercing stare. And he was just as hot as I remembered him; sadly enough, as Kaze would have asked me to confirm in an annoyed voice had I said it to her, in my surprise I still had the time to notice that.

"Him?"

"Hiei," I choked. "In. My. House."

Kaze stared at me, but she didn't often question me on random, non-human things even if they were as unbelievable as an anime character suddenly appearing in my house. So she then squeaked and grinned, opening her arms for an excited, possibly congratulatory hug. I wasn't an entirely huggy person, but I sprang on her with an embrace anyway. He was here. My dream, my love. Here. Real.

Suddenly I broke away, ears pricked, and I stared at the doorway.

"What is it?" Kaze asked, but I silenced her immediately. I have the ability to sense things like they're physically being seen when they are within a close area. I can map out everything, I can see anything. I could see past my door, but the bathroom was just too far off for me to see what had caused the noise I'd heard in exact, and so I only sensed a shape large enough to be a human or demon.

My bathroom, for a side-note, is broke into two sections. First off, there is the standard toilet and sink, in a separate room from the shower and two more sinks; joined, this makes something quite like an L shape lying on its side. I sensed whatever it was in and heard the noise from the shower, oddly enough.

I blinked. "There something in the bathroom," I murmured as Kaze asked again. I found myself hopeful despite my confusion at the odd placement of whatever it was. Maybe it was Hiei, though it would have certainly been a strange spot for him if it had been. I couldn't have been more wrong.

I stood and opened the door, Kaze following as quietly as her clumsy human feet could follow.

I walked into the bathroom with the shower and sinks, not turning on the light, and I crept slowly to the bath area. Kaze latched onto my wrist; I ignored her. My eyes widened as I looked past the shower curtain at the wall. As I said, I was not one to scream. But any of my other friends would have.

Some…thing was leaned limply against the wall with the shower head, standing without moving. The thing was dead—_very_ dead. Its skin was brown-black, hanging off its fragile bones and rotting skin and muscle like tattered rags. Its eyes were shadowed, but I knew it had eyes. I was glad I didn't see the eyes. I knew they would have holes in the irises and the whites, the pupils long broken through. Pupils are only holes—there is a layer of thick eye skin covering them, and that skin was probably gone on this thing. Even through its appearance, think zombie and not corpse—it could still move and probably fight. Even if it was dead, it was still dangerous, and it was aware of me.

I backed away slowly, keeping my front to it, then I poked Kaze once. "Move," I hissed, knowing sounding more pissed off than scared. I have a hard time allowing emotions beside anger or annoyance show in my voice, and that included fear as well as sadness, pity, or true rage—I could yell, yes, but I could rarely sound anything more than jokingly pissed off.

We shuffled back into the room, and I closed the door behind me, leaning against it for only a brief moment before I found that I badly wanted to shy away from the doorway. Walking toward Kaze and settling onto the bed, feeling paranoid that the dead thing was moving toward us at this moment, I motioned for her to sit, then said, "There was something that was _so_ not Hiei in there." It hadn't been a ghost—it had been a corpse-like thing, and had Kaze walked first, she would have been able to see it even though she was unable to see spirits.

She seemed wary and her scared countenance didn't help to deny the fact. "What was it?"

"Something very, _very_ dead." As I said it, I could sense my banshee hissing. That thing had threatened to hurt me. She was pissed off. "I'm going to send my banshee," I sighed, meaning to investigate what the thing was doing, closing my eyes and telling her to go see what the hell that thing was.

She slipped through the closed door like it was open, but as soon as she left I became jittery. I felt nervous, which I suppose was understandable after finding a corpse that was somehow standing on its own and aware of its surroundings, but I was nervous for a different reason.

"I'm worried about her," I muttered, and Kaze looked at me sympathetically. "Dead things can hurt other dead things." After a spontaneous decision, I said quickly, "I'm calling her back."

My banshee was in the room before I even finished my message to her, her arms thrown around my neck. She liked to do that and did so often. (She also had an annoying habit of scraping her long claw-like fingernails on my skin and biting me, but oh well. No one's perfect)

"I really hope Hiei is still here," I said to Kaze, for the first time actually showing my fear. I knew he probably wouldn't feel any need to protect a few seemingly-human teenage girls whom he'd never met, but all the same, I could think nothing but the concept of him chasing that corpse-thing here on a mission or something. That had to be why he was here, and he would probably leave as soon as he had disposed of it.

Suddenly my thought train broke and looked around the room. "Where'd she go?" I asked Kaze.

"Who?" was Kaze's clueless response.

I growled. "My banshee, baka," I snarled, my eyes venturing toward the door and hoping she had not felt the need to again go after the corpse-thing.

"Ooohh…"

"Yeah," I muttered, imitating her, "'Ooohh…'"

"What do you mean 'Where'd she go'? Where is she?"

"I don't know!" I snapped, and suddenly I felt my banshee's cold embrace return to its place around my neck once again. I relaxed and smiled lightly as she told me the news, which I relayed to Kaze. "They killed it."

"'They'?"

I grinned. "My banshee scratched the dead thing to keep it busy while Hiei killed it." I let out a huge sigh of relief. "We are safe."

Kaze hugged me, and I smirked. Finding that I could not remain cheery for too long, as my usual pessimism didn't allow it, I frowned nearly immediately after, looking back at the door. "Better make sure," I said.

Kaze didn't look very willing, but she nodded.

"I'm not brave enough right now," I told Kaze quietly as I lingered on the bed, grinning sheepishly. "This is Aletta's job."

I closed my eyes, and everything faded. Now I was only watching my body and Kaze, no longer in control.

"How dead?" was Aletta's first question. I must add that Aletta's voice is deeper and prettier than mine, very calm and soft, yet strict and hard in the same.

"Hmm?" Kaze asked, looking confused.

"How dead is the monster, or was?"

"Rachel didn't really say—" I scowled as Kaze used my human name, but the expression didn't carry to my physical body now that Aletta was in control. "—but I think it's quite dead."

Aletta nodded curtly, opening the door without the slightest trace of fear. God, I loved her so much sometimes. She flicked on the hall light, despite the fact that her night vision was better than mine even when she possessed my body. She told me later that dead creatures often hated lights. "We're turning on the light this time," she growled as we got to the bathroom. She flicked the switch, walking toward the shower in a now lighted bathroom. She didn't even hesitate for precaution, and walked over briskly to look into the tub. "It's gone," she confirmed, looking admiringly at the clean shower that lacked any trace of a skirmish or even that the thing had been standing there. "It was disposed of with skill."

As she headed back for my room, I took control of my body again and laughed with relief. "Thank God," I said, grinning. Kaze hugged me again, and I mentally sweat-dropped. Kaze was a huggy, sentimental person. That didn't really match how I was toward everyone, but I decided it didn't matter and returned the embrace.

"We should sing a song to thank Hiei," she told me. I agreed, being that I knew that he must like Evanescence and our voices if he moved only when we sang. It was obvious to me already that he had been my 'stalker', and now that the dead thing had shown itself and been killed, I wondered if he'd leave. "Which one? Do you know what his favorite is?"

"I don't—" I would have finished with 'know', but I stopped as a sexy, familiar voice murmured "_Whisper_" in my head. I grinned.

"What is it?"" she asked, noting the random smile.

"He said Whisper," I said softly, holding back another delighted laugh. He was here. He was speaking to me. He was real, and talking to _me_.

"Just hope he doesn't see your wall," Kaze laughed. My wall happened to be covered in several printed out Hiei pictures…Very _hot_ Hiei pictures, I feel the need to add. I smacked her before we sang.

"_Catch me as I fall_

_Say you're here and it's all over now_

_Speaking to the atmosphere_

_No one's here and I fall into myself_."

Whisper had always been one of my numerous favorites…it had been my favorite until I listened to it too many times and wore it out. Now 'Tourniquet' was my favorite.

"_This truth drives me_

_Into madness_

_I know I can stop the pain if I will it all away_

_If I will it all away_

_Don't turn away_

_(Don't give in to the pain)_

_Don't try to hide_

_(Though they're screaming your name)_

_Don't close your eyes_

_(God knows what lies behind them)_

_Don't turn out the light_

_(Never sleep never die)_"

Despite the fact that I had worn it out, I still loved this song, and now I found that I loved it even more.

"I'm frightened by what I see 

_But somehow I know that there's much more to come_

_Immobilized by my fear_

_And soon to be blinded by tears_

_I can stop the pain if I will it all away_

_If I will it all away_

_Don't turn away_

_(Don't give in to the pain)_

_Don't try to hide_

_(Though they're screaming your name)_

_Don't close your eyes_

_(God knows what lies behind them)_

_Don't turn out the light_

_(Never sleep never die)_

Fallen angels at my feet 

_Whispered voices at my ear_

_Death before my eyes_

_Lying next to me, I fear_

_She beckons me, shall I give in?_

_Upon my end shall I begin?_

_Forsaking all I've fallen_

_For I rise to meet the end_

_Don't turn away_

_(Don't give in to the pain)_

_Don't try to hide_

_(Though they're screaming your name)_

_Don't close your eyes_

_(God knows what lies behind them)_

_Don't turn out the light_

_(Never sleep never die)_"

* * *

1—Hi-Chan, pronounced 'Hee'-Chan, means fire-Chan. It was Kaze's favorite name for me then. 


	2. When Realities Blend

**Authoress's Note:** As with the first chapter of this fanfiction, this chapter also used to be several different chapters: 'Hiei's Missing?' 'Hi-Chan's Ofuda, and Pain,' and 'Chichiro Ketsueki Is _Me_!' Also, the ofuda in this chapter, if you are unaware, is a paper spell. If you've ever seen Inuyasha, Miroku uses ofudas. They are papers with Japanese text on them, holding spells or binds in them.

**Disclaimer:** Neither Hiei or YuYu Hakusho are mine.

**Claimer:** Chichiro and Ketsue are mine, Kaze is BritKit, Aria is FoxWitch. While not all the characters are mine, all writing, storylines and concepts in this fanfiction (Save any YYH references) are (This includes Nirvana, Spike, all shadowcats, the shadowcat species, Escque, Mahdaegrahs/entities, scorpios etcetera.).

* * *

Morning came too early for me the next morning. I yawned, glancing sideways and finding Kaze to still be asleep, and so I didn't move.

I looked over at the tree outside my window, smiling and shuddering at the same time as I remembered last night. Hiei was here, and real, and all my years of hoping for him to be more than an anime character actually paid off.

Nothing really happened that morning…all was boring, and Kaze left early.

* * *

I considered a lot that night. Mostly about Hiei, of course. I thought a lot about his jagan…could he see what I had done for him? I'd done a lot in ways of—how to say it?—proving how much I cared for him. Including carving his name into my wrist the past year (I realize now how wrong it is that I began such things at the age of twelve. It's almost depressing. No doubt it would be if it had been anyone else's name, but anything involving Hiei seems to make sense, no matter how drastic.)

I used to cut, though to this day I still don't think I had a true reason to past the fact that it made me feel free. I loved feeling blood running down my arm, and I wanted to have scars—nothing interesting had ever happened in my life, and I guess in some ways I wanted to pretend that it had. I enjoyed it so much that I eventually stopped more from fear of that casual enjoyment in carving my own flesh than because of reason. I knew it was my demon blood that made me love the sight of blood so much, and I wasn't quite ready yet to start killing off humans and pets as I figured I might should my demon side turn out to be rabid and blood-thirsty.

It was after I had stopped for about a month that I slipped into my random phases of extreme morbidity. I began to think about suicide…often. Once, when I was online with my friends on the computer I even said I was doing it that night; that I was committing suicide, and I began to say goodbye. I had it planned, too. I'd use a kitchen knife to slit one of my wrists while my parents weren't home. I even had my suicide note planned.

But the only thing that brought me through it was when one of my friend's recognized me as who I was…she begged me, _Aletta_, not as a human, not to do it. So I didn't.

My morbidity level had seriously gone down since then, and now with Hiei here—although he hadn't been around for more than two days—I felt as though I was in a constant state of euphoria. For whatever reason, Hiei had chosen to stay even after the threat of the dead thing was long past. Why he did, I couldn't be sure, but even though he didn't often pay much attention to me, never started conversation on his own, and seemed irritable when I tried to speak to him, I was glad he had decided to stay.

Exciting news, even with my newly eventful life. You have to realize that I'd found out almost everything involving my non-human breed within the past year: that I could control rain, that I was a death element and that was why nine spirits and my banshee hung around my house, and now that Hiei was real. And, really, it had hit me in a fairly close time range, one thing after another. I had known before that I wasn't human, true, but I had no clue of my powers. It was…interesting, and yet annoying. Aria, as she was the person I went to when I had questions of anything non-human related since she had an incredible wisdom of magic in this era, said my magic was manifesting. Regardless of the reasoning, I'd gotten used to a hectic lifestyle. At least, what I thought to be hectic back then.

* * *

It had been two days since Kaze slept over…and I was worried sick.

I couldn't sense Hiei anywhere…I usually could. Scratch that, I ­_always_ could. And I'd been talking to him with his jagan lately, whether by his choice or not. I was so worried. He told me nothing about going anywhere. I was so scared for him…he had vanished the earlier night around 1 AM, so I guess the last morning was more like it. It was now 2 PM, and he still hadn't returned.

I hadn't known him long, and I didn't know whether it was stupid to assume that he would come back and had left for good or if he was in danger, but all the same I was on the internet with Kaze, rambling about how worried I was for a demon I barely knew.

A huge grin suddenly spread across my face, and I felt annoying, unwanted tears of relief well in my eyes. Had I been alone, I probably would have cried despite myself. I had felt an extremely presence outside, and as soon as I did, my fingers began to glide rapidly across the keys and type in a message to Kaze. (As you're reading this, know that most comments in '--'s were not actually done, and neither was the whole Hiei-blushing-and-sweat-dropping thing. It was just our way of talking and my way of exaggerating things over the internet for humor and effect. And though I do not type like Kaze does online…this is exactly how she typed it, and I won't change it.)

_**Hi-Chan**: HIEI'S BACK! -sobs with relief- __  
**Kaze**: OMG IS HE OK?__  
**Hi-Chan**: I seriously do have tears in my eyes... was worried...He's okay__  
**Hi-Chan**: WAIT!__  
**Hi-Chan**: His arm's hurt! __  
**Hi-Chan**: NOOOO! -hugs Hiei-__  
**Kaze**: goes into hysterics__  
**Hi-Chan**: It's only his shoulder...it's not too bad...__  
**Kaze**: i seriously have tears in mi eyes too__  
**Hi-Chan**: I wish he'd come in so I could see to it...__  
**Kaze**: im grinning__  
**Hi-Chan**: Me too...God damn him I was so worried__  
**Kaze**: oh thank god oh thank god oh thank god__  
**Kaze**: this is SUCH a relief...__  
**Hi-Chan**: I cant see the fucking screen...this is all your fault, Hiei...__  
**Kaze**: fuzzified eyes?__  
**Hi-Chan**: MAJORLY__  
**Hi-Chan**: -cries- I'm so glad he's okay...damn you Hiei...don't do that...__  
**Kaze**: I agree__  
**Hi-Chan**: -ish sobbing- I cant even tell you how relived I am...__  
**Kaze**: u can try__  
**Hi-Chan**: I am so fucking, God-damned, relieved that I will be saying holy shit for the next hour and crying every time I think about it.__  
**Hi-Chan**: There.__  
**Kaze**: ok__  
**Kaze**: im not gonna stop grinning for a while, is he talking to u?_

_**Hi-Chan**: No...he's just sweat-dropping and blushing at all the attention.__  
**Kaze**: awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww__  
**Hi-Chan**: He was fighting last night.__  
**Hi-Chan**: That's why he was missing today_

He had told me this after my hysterics had simmered down some. It turned out that there were more of those corpse-things like the one in my shower, and Hiei had indeed hung around the house because that specific one was skulking about nearby, as I had suspected. It seemed that he fought those things every night, but that the one in my bathroom was the first to ever approach anything beyond a human, so Hiei told me, which made me realize that he knew that I wasn't human. For whatever reason, I was glad he'd gathered that.

I had also found out, which I did not tell Kaze immediately since I saw no need for her to know, the reasoning behind that thing being in my bathroom. Because, let's be honest, I am sure that most people would also want to know why a dead thing chose a shower of all places to hide itself in. Apparently these corpses traveled most often through water, and some variations of the species (Hiei himself had said this almost to exact, and it made me wonder exactly how a bunch of corpses qualified as a species.) were able to liquefy themselves most of the way to fit through small spaces in when they were submerged in any form of liquid. This included drains, much to my disgust and mild fear.

_  
**Kaze**: oh.__  
**Hi-Chan**: Guess what? Here's something else to show how relived I am__  
**Hi-Chan**: This is the first time in my ENTIRE life that I've EVER said God-damned__  
**Kaze**: oh how special. hiei don't u feel special now?__  
**Hi-Chan**: He has his eyes closed and he's twitching...-even bigger grin- and blushing__  
**Kaze:** awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww__  
**Hi-Chan**: XD__  
**Hi-Chan**: -eyes are still fuzzified, is still grinning hugely-__  
**Kaze**: XD__  
**Hi-Chan**: -hugs Hiei plushie- You're GOING to come in tonight...I'm GOING to heal you...__  
**Kaze**: nods__  
**Hi-Chan**: -grins- We're both gonna drag you in -turns to Joanna- Right, Kaze?__  
**Kaze**: mmhmmmm!__  
**Hi-Chan**: -crosses arms and nods-_

Of course I didn't actually _have_ a Hiei plushie, which further showed how much of that conversation didn't make sense, but Kaze knew this and didn't care.

I didn't even know why I was so relieved. He hadn't even been gone twenty-four hours, as he pointed out several times with extreme irritation present in his voice, and I hadn't known him for more than three days. It confused me completely—I felt like I knew him. And it wasn't just from the influence of seeing nearly every episode of the anime that involved him, or at least that's what I wanted to believe. It was something more, my gut told me.

Every time it was mentioned ('It' being his return), I actually did physically almost cry, again from relief. However, that relief was short-lived.

Kaze came over for another sleep over that night, and as soon as she arrived we hugged and relayed our own ways of showing how relieved we were again. Pathetic, sentimental, not my style, as Hiei reminded me so graciously; of course his version excluded the part about it not being how I normally was.

Predictably enough, Hiei flat out refused to come into that night. I didn't know what was holding him back—was it that he didn't think he needed help, didn't want _my_ help specifically, or was he flustered over the attention as my must-make-this-situation-cute drive told me to think? He needed to be healed, and I had at least minor skill in healing wounds with magic. That was thanks to T'nuviel's help. Honestly, though, I found that I was amazed that he was reacting so badly to this wound…he'd had _much_ worse than this and didn't even blink an eye when it happened. I considered that the anime could have portrayed him differently than reality (Although so far it seemed accurate enough), but I thought that I could handle his wound if I had it, and so I wasn't sure why _he_ of all people seemed so affected by it.

I began to think it was more serious than a flesh wound…that there had been poison or magic in whatever weapon he had been wounded with in the battle. Another thing to be worried sick about.

I was told something that Hiei had learned in battle when I spoke to him honestly (Not reliving again in conversation how glad I was that he was back. He didn't often reply when I said that, and ignored me.) for the first time since he'd returned. It was the last thing he said for a while, for although we didn't speak much anyway, his wound apparently hurt him enough to hold most of his attention and he no longer said anything period.

The dead thing in my shower was from Makai, and it was only one of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of soldiers just like it. Makaian assassins sent from and created in demon world, sent out to the human world for one job, one quest: to destroy the human race, and to kill me.

* * *

Hiei had been distant ever since he returned. His wound must have been really bothering him— if I tried to talk to him he wouldn't listen. Well, I'm confident he was listening, actually, he just wasn't replying.

And so I decided to make an ofuda that night.

I began with writing his name on one side (in Japanese, of course) and on the other side was the word Jaganshi (Also in Japanese), and in red ink was the symbol for fire.

When it was finished, I took out my quill pen (Which I had accidentally broken earlier that year, and so it was easy to use to cut things with.) and I used it to re-open a small nail scrape on my finger that my Banshee had so graciously granted me. I let the blood run into the center of the ofuda. As well, on Hiei's name, the word Jaganshi, and the symbol of fire I drew a single drop of blood. To finish, I sealed it with barrier of blood, so that the two sides would stay together and hide the inside blood.

The spell I used was quite long…it would take forever to write down. Because I'd rather not narrate the entire thing, should it have been shortened and squished together, it pretty much said that my body, mind and heart were his to use at his disposal, but that my soul was still my own. Every time from now on when he was injured, he wouldn't remain wounded. I would be. When I died, the ofuda was to be burned. Then all my life energy would go to Hiei. At least it would be of some use.

My shoulder screamed in agony that night...I'd never felt such a sensation before and I immediately felt like an idiot for ever wondering why Hiei had reacted so strongly to this wound. After it was finished, and after I'd cleaned my shoulder (I used what little magic I had left to seal it so it was only an internal wound that my mother would not see and ask about), I collapsed onto my bed. I felt so weak, and my entire body hurt. It took a lot of magic just to do a binding spell that sealed magical energy to paper, not to mention take someone else's wound as well.

The only thing, I found, that could sooth the pain at least in a minor way was my healing oils. I'd made them using lavender oil which, funny enough, I'd bought at Michael's (A craft store.). Before I'd poured the oils into a small, inch-high container, I'd sprinkled a dried rose petal into it, and also dropped a single blossom off a plant into the inside. Then, I'd moved on to pour in the tiniest amount of sand (sand that I'd blessed with my magic for such spells as this) into the container. Then I'd added the oils. I rubbed the oil onto my shoulder, letting it soothe me.

The container the oil had come in said 'Avoid contact with eyes and skin. Not for consumption.' Obviously I wasn't going to eat it or use it as eye drops…but humans hadn't the slightest idea of the convenience of many 'toxic' materials in use in spells. Of course, perhaps for humans it _was_ toxic. For me it just happened to be a painkiller, which was a thing I sorely needed then.

I passed out on my bed, still dressed, with my dim light still on. I didn't wake for twelve hours.

* * *

Hiei seemed surprised and uncomfortable with what I'd done. He didn't speak to me afterward for a while. It could have been amusing and flattering, but thanks to the fact it felt as though I had a katana stabbed through it, I didn't really notice. What the _hell_ did he do to himself? Kaze later suggested that perhaps it was a poisoned wound, as I had assumed before. I hoped not.

It throbbed, and I couldn't sleep easily for several weeks past the night I first made the ofuda. I would fall asleep, then accidentally roll onto my shoulder and wake biting my lip to stifle a scream. I was exhausted constantly because of it; when I did sleep, I did so like a rock for however long I was able. I usually hated sleeping, but when I had that wound it was like sanctuary. And past that, my left hand (being that the wound was on my left shoulder) stopped working every once and a while. If I didn't flex it once and a while, it simply locked up and didn't respond. My wrist was sore, as well; I had to crack it backward and frontward to stop the throbbing. To make sure my shoulder didn't touch the mattress, I had to sleep on my right side the entire night, and I couldn't lie flat. It became so severe at one point that I took three Advil's even though human medicine didn't work on me.

I used my entire spell bottle of oil, and because I didn't have any supplies left over, I had to bear with it.

Hiei wasn't embarrassed any longer after he saw me suffering, and began to seem almost like he felt guilt toward it, which made me more pissed off than confused at his near-concern (As such a thing was strange from Hiei.). It had been my decision, hadn't it?

I regretted it after a bit, but I refused to break the magic. I did it because I cared about Hiei and didn't want him injured or in pain. And I still did, so I wasn't about to change my mind. Besides, as far as I knew, there was no way to break the magic anyway. I was stuck with it. It was a decision I hope he appreciated, that I was happy with myself for, and a decision that hurt like hell.

* * *

My pain has soothed somewhat with my new supply of oils. In the short time before I was able to get to Michael's for buy it, I found out what happens when I'm in a great deal of pain and can't control my emotions or power: severe thunderstorms. We lost power.

Kaze called. She was leaving for a three-week camp called Lakeland. I already knew that, and she was aware of that—she hadn't called for that reason.

She didn't bother with 'hello's or 'how are you's. "Is that you?" was her greeting after my mother handed me the phone, referring to the storm.

Unsure of why she had decided to call simply for that reason, I responded, "Yeah."

"Rachel…" she whined, dragging out my name for several seconds longer than was natural to advertise her annoyance; she sounded a bit like she was pleading for me to make it stop as well.

I was far past pissed off by that. She could have had the decency to ask what was wrong, to inquire as to if anything had happened, if I had decided to screw around with energy and was fucking up the weather patterns…Anything would have been fine outside of being impatient, as she happened to be.

"We _both_ know I can't help this one," I told her angrily.

No longer whining but still sounding hopeful that the storm would pass, she asked in her usual tone, "Why not?"

"It's because I'm in pain," I snapped, deciding that I wouldn't bother trying to be patient with Kaze's clueless nature this time around. My shoulder began to throb as my anger seethed.

Not seeming as though she cared, she simply said, "Oh."

Although I was mad at her, as I explained earlier, it isn't in my nature or breed to show the amount of my emotion, but only to show the emotion itself in a dulled down version that often didn't serve to get my point across. I told her without bothering making the attempt to express how angry she'd made me that my cat was missing.

"What?"

"Tango," I said flatly. He was my male cat, and it was an honest excuse. Just a very conveniently-timed one that allowed me to hang up sooner. "He doesn't like storms, and he's missing. We can't find him. So I have to go."

"Alright. Bye."

I told her I'd miss her, and to enjoy Lakeland, because even though I was pissed off with her blunt, unconcerned reaction, I would eventually miss her. Eventually.

* * *

T'nuviel called later into the day after my family had finally found Tango hiding in the garage. We convinced our parents (Her mother hated me, although my own parents were much more willing to agree.) to allow us to get together the following day.

It was nothing new, but when I was speaking with her, my shoulder began to hurt again. I had already explained a minor amount about the ofuda to T'nuviel, who had never seen YuYu Hakusho but knew of Hiei all the same, and she knew about my pain. She did something she called 'long distance healing.' It helped the pain a minor amount, but didn't honestly do much in the way of healing it.

While on the subject of the ofuda, Hiei still wasn't talking to me much because of it. When he did speak to me every fleeting once and a while, he did not mention the spell. Amazing that he, a usually emotionless demon like himself, would take it so seriously for such a long time, I thought with minor amusement and annoyance in the same.

That night I found that the pain grew worse after T'nuviel's healing wore off; I was no better off with my new supply of oils—I was running out again, as I was hardly using it sparsely. Finally I used all the rest of my container on it, and I collapsed onto my bed. I don't know how long I was out. I barely even remember falling asleep.

The following morning I could hardly walk up the stairs I was so exhausted; that sort of pain wasn't easy to sleep with.

Because it was the only thing that actually made him listen to me first-thing without ignoring me with great persistence for a few minutes beforehand, as I flopped onto my bed I quietly sang 'Tourniquet'. Hiei's attention snapped to me immediately.

"What the hell did you do to yourself?" I murmured tiredly, burying my face in my pillow and keeping my ears exposed so that I could hear his response. The drowsy effect of the oil hadn't worn off yet, but the dull throbbing of my shoulder was back again anyway to hint that the oil itself _was_ wearing off.

"I was injured," Hiei muttered in return, as if this was news to me; as usual, he knew but chose to ignore the true point of the question. He then mentioned the ofuda for the first time. "Why did you do that?"

I moved my head slightly so that part of my face was out of the fluff of the pillow again and so that I could see Hiei outside my window. Although the sight was a welcome one, it was still incredibly strange and hard to fathom as real. "The ofuda, you mean?"

"Yes."

Sighing lightly and moving myself so that I was lying on my side rather than on my stomach, I replied, "You know why, dufus."

Hiei didn't answer.

Figuring he desired more than that, I told him quietly, "I really care about you." He already knew, but it was the first time I had said it to him. I couldn't bring myself to say 'love'. It would have been too odd. I thought I probably did love him, but I couldn't be sure…my emotions were too screwed up to assume something so large. "_That's_ why I did it."

Softly, he murmured as if he meant to continue after the name, "Chichiro…"

I blinked with surprise as he stopped himself. He had never called me anything save 'ningen'. Other than that he'd never said my name—any of them, including Chichiro. And by the look on his face he hadn't meant to.

"Yeah?"

He looked away from my eyes, which was a surprisingly insecure-seeming move coming from him. "We…knew each other in your past life."

I widened my eyes at this, surprised. "You're eight thousand?"

He sighed his exasperation at my apparently clueless question, muttering, "No, _you_ are eight thousand years old. But you had a second past life."

I growled. My breed was only supposed to be reincarnated once, and this sort of thing not only didn't make any sense but it almost angered me. He was telling me to go against what I believed in saying that I had multiple lives before this one. "Go on," I said gruffly.

"You _were_ Chichiro Ketsueki."

My eyes widened. My…fanfiction character? I mean, with my insane mind I had thought up that perhaps I was remembering everything I wrote. It all seemed so real, and I knew exactly what to write. But now…? To assume that such a strange concept was reality seemed even odder now that someone else had stuck the idea in my face and suggested its truth. "I was? It's real?" That meant that in a past life, I'd been Hiei's love interest. That was also incredibly strange feeling, but not entirely an unwelcome idea to me.

"Everything that you wrote happened. The exactness of it, how it happened and the timing is off, but the general concept was accurate."

I blinked. "Then how come I don't know what happened afterward?" I was working on the early chapters of the third book, which explained Chichiro's past. I still didn't have too much in mind for it, and many of the characters lacked names, but I had the rough concept of what happened to her down. Being that I wasn't sure if he knew what I meant, I continued, "At the end of everything."

Hiei winced visibly. I'd hit a sore topic, I knew, and I almost regretted asking. "Because…" By his expression, he was thumbing over in his mind how to respond. And then, in an amusing, almost child-like way, he told me with the utmost simplicity, "I don't want you to."

Even if he hadn't before, he had my full attention and interest now. "You've been keeping me from finding out?" I had thought to say 'remember,' but that would have been too odd for me to say.

"Yes." Hiei's eyes dropped again away from my own, and I almost thought I saw sadness in them despite his usual expressionless countenance.

"Why?"

"Because I don't want you to know," he replied, reiterating what he had said almost exactly.

I reached out and touched the screen of my window, feeling alone suddenly. It was paining Hiei to talk about this. _Why?_

"Hiei…what happened?"

He chose to ignore my question, and instead his eyes lifted to once again meet mine. They had a harsh intensity that in some ways made me badly want to look away, and in another way made me want to search those eyes forever. "I've been looking for you so long. For years I've been searching."

"Why? Didn't I die?" He made no move to respond to that, and I pressed, "Don't people have to die to be reincarnated?"

Hiei suddenly stood on the tree branch. "Don't push me," he growled, his crimson eyes threatening even though he refused to make contact with mine. "I will tell you soon enough. Or you will find out yourself." And then he was gone.

I stared at the tree branch even after he'd long left it. What was he hiding, and why had he brought it up if he only intended to cut off where he had? _Why won't you tell me?_


	3. T'nuviel and New Jersey

**Authoress's Note:** The last of the conjoined chapters, this used to be split into two: 'T'nuviel's Visit,' and 'Hiei, Wolves, House-Hunting and Ghosts.'

**Disclaimer:** Neither Hiei or YuYu Hakusho are mine.

**Claimer:** Chichiro and Ketsue are mine, Kaze is BritKit, Aria is FoxWitch. While not all the characters are mine, all writing, storylines and concepts in this fanfiction (Save any YYH references) are (This includes Nirvana, Spike, all shadowcats, the shadowcat species, Escque, Mahdaegrahs/entities, scorpios etcetera.).

* * *

For T'nuviel and I, our meeting was mild. To a human it could have been considered interesting.

Before you read this, I must first alert you to a fact that I've previously considered unimportant to the storyline as of yet: I have a guardian. A guardian is an angel, in a way; a watcher of your soul and mind and body. She protects me, comforts me, heals me, and is also my best friend outside of my mortal and non-human friends.

As I said before, I used to cut but had stopped at that point. However, for the ofuda I had to cut quite a lot, for much blood was needed and because of that it could be said that I had begun again. And now my guardian, Arisa (Pronounced Uh-ree-suh) was angry with me. She did not like my physical abuse on my own body; in a way, I believe, guardians disliked it when those they guarded inflicted themselves with injury because it was one kind of pain and injury that they could not heal or prevent. Whatever the reasoning was, after I made the ofuda she had left my side and had not spoken to me nor allowed me to speak with her. Of course, I use 'speak' for simplicity's sake—she rarely ever spoke words; sending images and emotions was far more common.

But before T'nuviel and I could attempt the ceremony for regaining Arisa, I asked her to do something. I had broken my thumb sparring with my friend Alex (You're supposed to hold back. I was rather bad at that. I broke my own finger punching too hard. Alex had been unscathed despite, somehow.) and T'nuviel had suggested that she set it, not a doctor. Having a healer set a broken bone is less painful than having a doctor do it, and it also provided the convenience of not having to mention it to my parents.

"T'nuviel?" I asked meekly as we walked down the stairs to head outside.

"Yes?"

"Can you heal my thumb?" I held up my hand, grinning sheepishly. "It's been hurting a bit more lately, and with my shoulder and all…"

She nodded, seeming amused. She often found things funny that I had not considered humorous in the slightest, such as my sheepish mannerism toward asking her, that I later also found to be comedic in a way. "Sure!"

When we had gotten through the sliding door in the sunroom, she took my hand and felt the end joint of my thumb lightly. "It's healed," she told me. This surprised me, until she added, "It healed a different way than it was before." In other words, the bone had healed itself to the wrong place, which led me to consider what she would have to do; I had a fairly good idea as to what it would be. She saw right through me and looked up, grinning at the dread I'd felt when she said that. "Don't worry, I'm not gonna re-break it."

When I let out a sigh of relief, she laughed.

T'nuviel then asked if I had anything I could bite on just in case it hurt more than she thought it would. I fetched a wash cloth from inside, but ended up finding that I didn't clench my jaw too much and that the washcloth only served to annoy me, and that it was uncomfortable. She moved my bone the best she could without breaking it again, and finally she let go. I felt it with my other hand and flexed it the slightest bit, finding that I winced. "It still hurts," I said bluntly.

"It needs time to heal itself," she explained, flexing her hand. It hurt for her to heal, as she had to take the pain of the one she was healing initially, but it was as minor as the pain I'd felt was, if a bit less than that. "You should try and heal it in minor bits once and a while to help it along." In the same time that she had strengthened my healing powers, she had also told me how to use them, so I knew how to do what she said.

I felt guilt at her having to feel my pain despite the fact that the pain was small. Still, I only said, "Thanks."

"No problem."

We went up to my room after fetching a candle from downstairs (My Mom insisted she light the candle. I'm a major pyro, and she didn't trust me with it). After lighting the candle, T'nuviel instructed me to put on Enya, a Celtic singer. I played the CD 'A Day Without Rain,' the only Celtic CD I owned at the time.

It was actually rather cool how the whole thing went. T'nuviel told me to let my mind open to Arisa, and that she would do the same so that her own guardian would be able to possess her as mine would be able to do to me. Both of them took the opportunity to use our spoken voices only, and unlike when Aletta used my body, I was still aware and in control. The entire business took almost an hour. My guardian, naturally, is as damn stubborn as I am. But at the lecture and counsel of T'nuviel's guardian, she finally returned. The odd thing was that Aletta was pushing me to let her out during it, but I didn't dare with T'nuviel there, especially when I had only just regained my guardian's trust. She didn't argue about it for long and soon receded back into my mind without a fight. I found it almost funny.

After T'nuviel left I was sad…it was nice to see her. But no one can stay forever.

* * *

I didn't say what was happening the day after T'nuviel and I got together, did I? My father lived in New Jersey five days a week and commuted there from our home. The day after T'nuviel came we left for New Jersey for a week. I hoped that Hiei would tag along, even if I wasn't sure why he stuck around in the first place. He had still been very distant with me, and after our conversation about Chichiro that he cut short, it had only worsened. I'd soon find out why.

* * *

Five hours. It would take _five hours_ to get to New Jersey, I learned that morning. It wasn't the worst drive I'd ever had (Especially not after moving so many times. Williamson, New York, to Pittsford, New York, to San Diego, California, to St. Louis, Missouri and then back to Pittsford, New York.), but still…Damn.

I packed fourteen CDs, my sketchbook (I like to draw, true…but it was also conveniently the home of my ofuda then, until I found a suitable hiding place), my clothing, my Manga how-to drawing (For boredom-quenching purposes, not to honestly use), my oil container (It had no oil left, but the smell soothed me and it made my entire suitcase smell like lavender as a plus.), an necklace I'd made using a tiny vile of the oil (I'd given the other to T'nuviel as a friendship necklace, kind of), and my laptop (I could not and would not survive without my loyal Lappie-toppie), which made my bag much heavier than I felt it should have been.

After we made a stop to have a meal (If you can grace that crap by calling it such) at Burger King, I laid backwards in the back seat of the car and looked out the window to watch the sky and anything interesting that was in sight-range fly by upside-down.

_A tree_, I narrated, deciding in my boredom to keep a mental note of everything I saw. _Oh, fun, a streetlight. There's another tree…and a _branch_! How exciting. And now there's a streetlamp _and_ a tree. Oh, look, a flying chipmunk._ …Wait. A flying chipmunk?

I sat up and didn't let myself go off and hallucinate like that again. I was already delusional enough. I didn't need to see Super-Rodent now.

I looked lazily out the window, sighing, and turning on my Evanescence CD in the CD player I'd borrowed from my brother. Yes, sadly enough, although I had a stereo, TV, VCR, DVD player, cable box and a phone in my room, I'd yet to get a hand-held CD player (Makes sense, eh?). So I borrowed Adam's.

As I listened to the CD, I mouthed the words. I refused to sing in front of my parents, as I've said before, and fairly much everyone else. Kaze, T'nuviel, Aria and T'nuviel's best friend (and one of my friends as well, though not a best) Aerie were the only people I sang in front of. And, of course, I sang for Hiei. I'd never been embarrassed to sing in front of him and I doubted I ever would be. I realized then, sagging with disappointed annoyance, that I wouldn't be able to sing at all this vacation, save in the shower.

I finished the Evanescence CD, and then switched to 'Parallel dreams', by a Celtic singer I couldn't remember the name of. Submitting myself to a boring ride, I settled back against the corner formed by the seat and the car door and sighed.

After the annoying car ride was finally over (I had seen no more chipmunks, thank God) we got to my Dad's apartment, which happened to be stiflingly hot. He turned on the air conditioning, but it didn't help much for quite some time.

Finding that I could indeed sing thanks to the loudness of the air conditioner in my parent's room, I amused myself by singing aloud the entire 'A Day Without Rain' Enya CD. I didn't fall asleep until 1 or 1:30 in the morning.

* * *

Only three things of real important happened on the vacation besides speaking with Hiei (Who had, indeed, decided to come along.).

The first was house-hunting. My parents, Adam and I would possibly and likely be moving to New Jersey within the next few years, although my brother hoped that Mom and Dad would allow him to finish his senior year in New York so that he didn't have to move along with the rest of us. He had no problem making me start a new school for the sixth time, of course.

I relied mostly on my Evanescence CD, as always, to pass the time and keep me occupied while we drove from house to hour. However, our realtor's annoying voice was the only thing that got through the loud headphones. I would have honestly rather listened to my parents rant.

"_How can you see into my eye like open doors? ("I was showing a house to my client, and they said…")_

_Leading you down into my core, where I've become so numb ("Well, the worst thing a realtor can hear is…")_

_Without a soul ("…that the people didn't like the house as soon as they saw it…")_

_My spirit's sleeping somewhere cold ("…and, of course, this is AFTER they've looked in all the closets…")_

_Until you find it there and lead it back ("It's annoying, you know?")_

_Home ("'Cause if you don't like the house, **don't** look at it!")"_

_Oh shut up, pathetic mortal,_ I grumbled in my thoughts. As you can tell from the 'pathetic mortal' comment, I was obviously influenced greatly back then by the thought that I, like Aletta, was superior to all humans. The thoughts never really disappeared, but in the next few years they faded enough that I could call myself arrogant but not self-confident_. No one cares about your escapades with your clients…_

Later, she even talked about her daughter's cat. It was the only subject I slightly cared about, since it involved an animal and not how many closets her clients went through before they decided they disliked a house.

It was fun at first, looking at houses, but soon I grew sick of the whole business. The only good thing about the later houses was if they had cats or dogs, since by that point I had stopped paying attention to the houses themselves.

There was a ­_huge_ black dog at one house; an enormous, fat black lab that was incredibly friendly. After that there was a house with a black and white cat and gray cat outside. Next, a black cat lying on the bed of the Master bedroom. Finally, there was a small yappy dog that, although incredibly friendly, I decided against letting near me anywhere below my waist after about ten minutes of play, in which time she decided my leg would be a good object to hump.

* * *

The second interesting or important happening was when we were driving home from an independent house-hunting escapade that lacked our realtor.

We turned off the road and into a plaza parking lot (for no particular reason, as I saw), and immediately I felt sick. Cold feeling ran down my spine and throughout my body, and all I wanted to do was leave that place as soon as possible.

I though we were there to turn around, but as I soon saw it wasn't. My Dad _parked_ the car.

_No! Don't park it! Leave this place, NOW!_

"I need to go get batteries for your CD player," my Dad told me, pointing over at the Eckert's store.

My CD player had recently run out of power, but all the same I thought fervently, I don't need batteries!

I controlled my voice, however, and said nothing of my extreme desire to leave. "Okay."

He walked over to the store, disappearing inside, and I looked over at where my Mom's finger was pointed, her voice faintly reaching mine.

"Look. An apartment complex."

"Mmhmm," I mumbled back unenthusiastically, not understanding why she felt the need to point out things like that. Far as I could tell, apartment complexes weren't too interesting.

_I thought the hearing-your-own-breathing-really-loud thing was only from movies!_

After many agonizingly long seeming minutes, my father returned with batteries and started the car.

_Finally!_ I glanced over at the apartment complex, and shuddered as I saw a ghostly face in the window…of almost _every single apartment._

_Well now_, I thought with realization, feeling annoyed and fearful at in the same, _that's what sent my demon sense out of whack._

We drove away, but every figure's eyes followed us as we left, and when I looked backward, there was even dead spirits standing around the outside of the building, and one or two stood in random places in the parking lot. Including, I noticed as a cold feeling rushed through me, our previous parking space where we'd been only seconds before.

_This isn't a place for living_, I realized, turning around. _This was the place of a slaughter._

I would have guessed battlefield, had their not been women and children as well. I even noticed a single dog, still standing faithfully at its master's heels even after life left them both. _Comforting_, I thought sarcastically. I didn't allow myself a sigh of relief until we were at least a mile from that place.

The dead usually don't scare me, or even bother me. But those had been the innocent. That was no ordinary graveyard.

* * *

On the last day, on our way home, actually, we stopped at the Lakota Wolf Preserve. I saw my kin! It was the most amazing experience since meeting Hiei.

There was a long walk (Uphill the entire way, of course) to get to the enclosures that I don't remember very well save for the fact that I badly wished the walk had been shorter both while I was in the middle of it and when I had finished.

The wolves howled in unison as we arrived at the top of the hill, and I let out a breath of awe at the magnificent creatures before us. The largest was Midnight, also the oldest, who was black with silver-gray hairs around his muzzle.

It lasted maybe two hours…We saw four packs of wolves (Two timber wolf packs, one Tundra wolf pack, and one Artic wolf pack), three very smelly bobcats, and two foxes.

It was breathtaking…I cannot describe it and won't even bother trying.

* * *

I'd say the most important thing about the vacation was talking to Hiei.

After a few days, I had a frightening revelation; a guess, but just from Hiei's reaction I knew I was correct: I thought that Hiei had been so secretive both about telling me what happened and allowing me to know because the final time I died, _he_ had killed me.

When I was Chichiro Ketsueki (I remembered this on vacation) I became an assassin/spirit detective for Koenma, and I was sent to kill a demon named Atenre. I recognized his name from a time when Aria had spoken of her past. He had a silver ankh, a key to a book called the Book of the Gods, although I couldn't be sure then exactly what it was. There were five books like it. We ('We' being Chichiro, or me I suppose, Hiei and someone else who fleetingly crossed my mind, but the memory was simply a flicker and I couldn't make out whoever it was or summon a name.) killed Atenre, of course, but he also broke the ankh in the process. The ankh was somehow important to keeping the world in order, and the only way to restore it was for the altar it was kept on to taste blood…demon blood.

I had suspicions that Hiei had killed Chichiro for that, but I didn't feel right or correct. So why had he?

I had to know why Hiei killed me. When I asked him (I was hoping I'd just be embarrassed or incorrect, but he gave me no such gift) he only snapped at me. "Do not stick you nose in matters you should not know," he'd snarled, and sorrow was thick in his voice even through his apparent anger at the suggestion that seemed to be accurate. "You're not her anymore…You can't be. _You aren't Chichiro!_"

I'd never heard Hiei raise his voice so much…Or at all. Which meant I was right. So why? Why'd he do it?


	4. Author's Note

**AUTHOR'S NOTE, PLEASE READ!!**

Due to recent events, I wont be updating for a while. No, this story is not discontinued for good, only for a little while. I'll update in a few days to a few weeks, depending. All will be explained in the fan fiction anyways.

Also, for when I do update, if you're reading and not reviewing, please don't. I need reviews and suggestions...simply reading isn't helping me any with inspiration to continue. Thanks!

--Chichiro Ketsueki

Rest in Peace, Jason Wilcox—April 29, 1987-October 10, 2004


	5. Chichiro versus Seera

**Authoress's Note:** If you don't understand this, Chichiro—the main character's _yami_, not the main character—is in control of Chichiro/Hi-Chan/Ketsue/the main character's body for most of this chapter.

**Disclaimer:** Neither Hiei or YuYu Hakusho are mine.

**Claimer:** Chichiro and Ketsue are mine, Kaze is BritKit, Aria is FoxWitch. While not all the characters are mine, all writing, storylines and concepts in this fanfiction (Save any YYH references) are (This includes Nirvana, Spike, all shadowcats, the shadowcat species, Escque, Mahdaegrahs/entities, scorpios etcetera.).

* * *

I shifted my position so that my legs were crossed and my back was straightened; it was an improvement on my usual posture, but it felt natural anyway. I let my mind clear save for the image of Aletta and I merging, which was necessary for Chichiro to take control of my body.

I suppose I should explain. Since Hiei had arrived, I had felt a nagging presence at the back of my mind much like Aletta, but said presence never made itself known until a week or so before the night I'm describing. It turned out that I had a true yami (As Aletta was my half-yami, or a past life that was not honestly my darker half, just a darker side of me that was not evil.) that was in essence the Chichiro that Hiei had known, if a bit changed. Her personality and ways were nothing like the Chichiro I wrote of in my fanfictions, and it confused me severely, but Hiei was convinced that was Chichiro and I trusted him. _He_ was the one with the memories, after all, not me. But Chichiro…she was always angry, and generally her rage was directed at Hiei. It never phased the fire demon, but it only made my confusion greater, both in my lack of understanding toward her emotions and his lack of emotion _toward_ them.

I was at Aria's house. The five books, one of which the traitor—Atenre, which I mentioned to be the one who had guarded the Book of the Gods that Chichiro and Hiei killed—had been in charge of were missing. Perhaps 'missing' wasn't the right word, but Aria could not feel their presence within the world as she often could, and both her and her yami believed that they were not where they should have been. The five books, I suppose I should explain, were the creators, destroyers and stabilizers of life. They all revolved around one, the one which Atenre had been entrusted to protect: the Book of The Gods.

That aside, I should switch back to the present issue…Chichiro.

I opened—rather, Chichiro opened my eyes, and I watched as she did so—my eyes and examined her surroundings with a cold glare. Chichiro's eyes fell on Aria, and they narrowed as an arrogant smirk curled at her lips. "Hello, Human."

Aria did not respond to the name and allowed her own yami to possess her body—Seera. I had met Seera once before and had been so terrified of her that I had been rendered immobile save for speaking, which I did in a surprisingly clear voice. I had trembled the entire time.

"Human?" quoted Seera. Her voice was more of an inhuman hiss, and it brought shivers to my own spine the first time I had heard it; back then, I had honestly considered her to be a bit like the epitome of evil. However, Chichiro, of course, remained unimpressed. That night I saw an entirely different side of Seera, and because of the way she responded to Chichiro, I began to lose my fear of her. Not entirely, of course, but it was a step forward from terror, wasn't it?

"Seera, we meet at last," Chichiro purred coldly, but I couldn't tell if it was genuine pleasure or mocking in her hard voice.

"Chichiro," Seera replied with a matching smirk.

_Good God_, I thought. _Bringing two yamis out at the same time and not having someone to keep them out of trouble? What were Ri-chan and I thinking?_ I imagined Aria would be thinking close to the same.

"I would say it's a pleasure," my yami said lightly, "but I don't like to lie."

"Same for me," agreed Seera, though I could have sworn I heard a slightly dejected note in her voice.

Chichiro simply 'hn'ed as usual, then suddenly hissed, seemingly at nothing.

Seera simply looked at her without interest, waiting for an explanation. I had to wonder if she was honestly curious beneath that expressionless exterior; I knew I was.

"_He's_ here," Chichiro spat with distain. I felt my own heart jump. This was what I had been waiting for, or rather hoping for—an explanation of what Hiei had done!

She provided none, however, and Seera only asked, "Who's here?"

"The traitor," Chichiro replied with the same cold, jagged edge to her tone as before.

"Hiei," Seera guessed. I'd assumed she'd learned that from Aria, and however much she tried to keep it from her voice, I could sense curiosity. "Why do you hate him so? I thought you were lovers."

"We were," she replied in a bitter tone, though I realized in horrified fascination the smirk that was playing across her lips, denying what she had just agreed to. This fact, of course, made no sense to me. Then again, Chichiro acting like she was now didn't either, remembering how she had acted in her past life. I could only guess that death changed a person. "He betrayed me. He _killed_ me."

_Well, I was right on that account,_ I thought, wondering if that was why Chichiro seemed to loathe Hiei so much.

Seera's eyes flashed with interest. "Why?"

"I haven't even told my human, fool," Chichiro growled back flatly. "Do you honestly think I'd let myself tell _you_?"

Seera remained as she was, unaffected by Chichiro's minor insult. "It doesn't matter anyway…curiosity is a foolish human trait."

"Not always," Chichiro replied, though I suspected it was just to be argumentative.

They remained in silence for a while before Seera issued a small growl. Chichiro slid her eyes over to the other yami and quirked a brow. "The human wishes for me to begin to interrogate you," Seera told her in explanation, a mild smirk on her face; I figured she'd enjoy 'interrogating' Chichiro.

"About the books?" my yami sighed, looking bored already.

"What do you know about them?"

"I know that both the humans are fools, and so are you. The book you seek does not exist."

I saw that this accusation hit Seera with greater force than any physical blow. She didn't even reply.

"The Book of the Gods does not exist," Chichiro elaborated, as if to clarify in case Seera had not understood her the first time.

Seera just stared blankly, anger growing within her eyes. "What?" she finally asked in a hiss lower than her normal voice.

"Don't make me repeat what you already heard," Chichiro muttered. "The real book you should seek is the Book of Summons."

"Never heard of it," Seera replied, acid in her voice. She wasn't particularly fond of being wrong, especially not when Chichiro was correcting her about something from her own culture.

"Yes, I can obviously gather that, you fool."

I was listening with interest to my yami now. I hated that I had been informed at the same time as Seera something that my yami knew and that I had been unaware of myself.

"The Book of Summons is the most powerful of them all. You can summon any spirit you wish, any demon you wish, any angel you wish. Or," Chichiro replied with a smirk that sent shivers down my spine, despite the fact that she was using my body to create the expression, "a God."

Seera's eyes widened slightly, very slightly, but her demeanor advertised a calmness that I doubted was true. "Summon a God? That's ridiculous."

"Not really," Chichiro sighed, examining my fingernails with extreme interest.

Seera didn't pay attention to my nails, however, and launched into another series of questions. "How do you know this? How can I trust you that this information is true? How do I know you're not making it all up?"

"Because," Chichiro said, not allowing her to question any further, "I do not make such things up. And besides—" She looked to Seera in what appeared to be amused triumph. "—you believe me."

Seera issued a low growl.

Chichiro simply looked at my nails again, and then I realized the reasoning for her interest as she dragged them harshly across the skin on my arm. I watched blood ooze from the scratches, and I winced in spiritual form even though she was in control of the body she'd wounded, but did not give her the pleasure of making any noticeable cries or protests. "Now, this game of question and answer is boring me…let us go outside."

"The human's parents won't like it," Seera pointed out.

"Since when do you fear humans?"

Seera did not respond, but simply shrugged. Chichiro stood, but glared in Seera's direction. "You first."

Seera growled again, but walked out the door ahead of her. I followed in spiritual form, noting how rigid Seera's body had become.

They left silently, slipping past Aria's snoring, deep sleeping parents easily. Chichiro immediately ran into the dew-stained grass at speeds I could not even dream of accomplishing, and headed for the tree near the very front of the yard, wearing an honest smile as the tree greeted her and as she leaned onto its trunk.

_Hello, Child_, it said softly. Its voice was very old, though not as old as my guardian. _You bear the scent of the one who comes to me often, but you are different._ Then it suggested with semi-odd wording, _You are half of her._

_I am Chichiro…my human's other half,_ my yami replied.

The tree said nothing more, and Chichiro smiled lightly before letting the expression slide as she faced Seera, who was walking toward her and the tree. Chichiro ignored her and slid down the trunk to sit on the ground, leaning against it leisurely.

Seera said nothing as well, but remained standing and didn't appear quite as comfortable as my own yami outside. Probably because she had nothing better to do, she focused her glare on my possessed body.

I could tell that Chichiro could feel her eyes boring into her skull, but she probably didn't mind or care. To a yami, especially Chichiro, another's glare as well as the other in general were inferior.

"So…Seera." Chichiro opened her eyes as she spoke. "What do we do now, do you suppose?"

"Kill the human's dog?" Seera suggested with little but slight humor.

Chichiro knew she had not meant it seriously, but replied anyways with, "Sounds good."

Seera remained unaffected, though I knew she was thinking of how to veer Chichiro from the idea. "The human would get angry."

Chichiro once again reiterated, "And why do you fear the human?"

"Our connection may be different than yours," Seera hissed, slight irritation flashing within her eyes. "I can respect my human's wishes once and a while."

"Than you are foolish and not a true yami," Chichiro spat back at her, then slapped a mosquito on her arm. I winced. Honestly, I didn't even kill _bugs_ then, and didn't like it when Chichiro did, either. "Let us return back to the house before I am eaten alive by these idiotic creatures."

Seera once again said nothing and went inside, Chichiro following in silence.

Their conversation—which consisted mainly of mocking their lighter halves or Seera pushing Chichiro to elaborate on the book she'd mentioned before, which she never obliged Seera in doing—lasted another fifteen minutes or so before Seera and Chichiro allowed Aria and I back into our bodies.

"The Book of Summons?" was the first thing Aria asked.

"I guess so," I said, but said nothing more and laid down, falling asleep almost immediately after my head rested on the pillow.


	6. Chichiro's Escapade

**Disclaimer:** Neither Hiei, nor Yu-Yu-Hakusho is mine.

**Claimer:** Chichiro is mine, Kaze is BritKit, Aria is FoxWitch.

* * *

The next few weeks had nothing of importance. Me and Hiei talked a lot, mostly about what I got wrong in my fan fictions. I asked him how he knew about my fan fictions, but he didn't respond and seemed mildly embarrassed.

He looked at my hair a lot; I guess it was odd for my blue fox ears to be missing, and for my hair to be blonde instead of black, but he didn't mention it.

I was working on the third book at that point, Voices of the Lost Realm BOOK III: Tears of Crimson, though now I am working on book five. I don't remember what chapter I was on, as it was last year and it seemed unimportant then.

I still didn't have 'memories', exactly. I just knew what to write, but I couldn't see happened after what I was writing until I wrote it down. I thought once and a while that Hiei was telling me what to write without me knowing, but he said no every time I thought that, using his jagan.

"You're remembering," he'd tell me. "I wouldn't use my jagan like that." He scoffed it, as if it wasn't worth it to tell me.

Me and Hiei never fought—we play-fought a lot, shouted a lot, but never actually got angry at one another. (But when I put his hair in pigtails while he was asleep after a battle with the Makain soldiers, he was pretty pissed. I just laughed at him, though. It's amusing when a guy in pigtails tries to act angry.)

In the present of the time I am telling of, I was about to go to T'nuviel's. I had told her about the events at Aria's, and she was curious to meet Chichiro.

The entire way there, me and Hiei spoke, using his jagan.

_Hiei, do you think it's a good idea to let Chichiro out?_

_Why not?_ He retorted, obviously thinking of the Chichiro he knew. _She's not rabid._

I snickered. _That's what you think._

T'nuviel gave me an odd look, and I stifled my chuckling.

_What_ is _that ridiculous thing on your head?_ He asked me, referring to my black and red Yu-Yu-Hakusho beanie.

I shrugged lightly, as not to direct attention to the others in the car, glancing out the window to see Hiei running along side the car, leaping from tree-to-tree. My eyes could see him despite how fast he was simply for my breed. The humans in the car could only see flashes of black, or nothing at all. If T'nuviel was on my side of the car, she might've been able to see him, but at her angle she could not. _Just a hat,_ I replied.

_Doesn't look like any hats I've ever seen_, Hiei muttered back.

I propped my cheek on my hand, resting my elbow next to the window of the car. _What do you think about what Chichiro said, with the five books? The Book of Summons?_

Hiei looked down at me from his place in the trees, his red-eyed gaze making my heart leap. I'd never imagined, despite how sexy I thought he was in his anime form, that he'd be this good looking in real life. He was so gorgeous, no words could describe. And the voice actor matched his real voice near perfectly. …I decided to block those thoughts from Hiei.

_I'm not sure_, he responded, noting the blocked thoughts but not pushing. _I already knew who Atenre was._

_You knew him?_ I asked, surprised, then recalled from my brief memory of being an assassin for Koenma that me and Hiei had killed Atenre. _Oh, right. You helped with the assassination._

_Hn_.

I could tell by Hiei's casual way of bringing it up that I was right in my thoughts while on vacation. Hiei hadn't killed me for the altar's sake, for that was when Atenre was assassinated.

As we pulled into T'nuviel's driveway, I got out first, then T'nuviel, then her parents, but by that time we were already inside and walking up the stairs to her room. Her stairs were cracked in many places, and hard to walk on, but I'd been there enough times to know where the cracks were, and how to avoid them.

Hiei settled himself on the neighbor's roof as I entered her room, against the chimney, careful to monitor closely any humans in the area, to keep himself hidden.

T'nuviel's room was mildly messy, but still awesome. She had faeries everywhere, as well as an Elfish bible and a few other magical things (and a doll house, but that wasn't exactly interesting to me most of the time.). On her ceiling, silver string hung down like rain.

I stood and decided a moment, and sat next to her bed rather than on it.

I glanced at a shelf near her bed, on which was a small, oval container. It was white, and though the top was on, I knew what was in it; it just had water, but also a small drop of T'nuviel's blood. Next to the container was a smooth stone. Both of these things she used for my guardian-obtaining ceremony.

Arisa, my guardian, knew (of course) that I was thinking about it, and she hugged me from behind my back, looping her arms around my neck. I grinned. T'nuviel finally joined me (her mom had stopped her downstairs, I never knew what about.) and I could faintly sense her guardian Ravena following her. Ravena was much older than Arisa, though they were both thousands of years old and looked no more than twenty, and she was wiser. Ever since Arisa had left me for a few days and Ravena had told her in the recovery ceremony that she wasn't doing her job, Arisa had been spiteful toward Ravena. Ravena, however, was too…shall we say 'mature' to be spiteful back, though.

Me and T'nuviel listened to music, sang, talked and looked through her Elfish bible to kill the hours before nighttime. When night did begin to dawn outside, I felt a lump in my stomach. I wasn't sure then why I didn't like letting Chichiro out. Of course, I'd learn eventually, but not yet.

"So." T'nuviel's voice told me that it wasn't a bored 'think of something to say' kind of so, but one that was introducing a new topic. A serious one.

"Mmm?" I looked over at her. I sensed Hiei flitter into a tree in her backyard instead of the neighbor's roof. He hadn't moved for a few hours before that.

"Are you going to let her out?"

I managed a sheepish smile and I acted with my tone like I was embarrassed to rather than I was afraid to. "I don't know…do you think it's a good idea?"

"I'm not sure," T'nuviel responded. "I've never met her."

I shrugged. She dropped the conversation, and we began talking of less important matters instead, avoiding any mention of her again for about two hours.

Then she began to _want_ to come out. Chichiro pushed me to tell T'nuviel she was going to come out, and then stop fighting her possession. But I still didn't feel it was safe to.

T'nuviel saw my expression change, even though it was the slightest bit. "What?"

"Chichiro wants me to let her out."

"Than let her out."

I was almost glaring at T'nuviel, who was NEVER unaware of anything, for being clueless. "But…" I trailed off and sighed, thinking, _Your funeral,_ for unknown reasons, and closed my eyes. "Alright. I'll try and maintain partial control so I can come back into consciousness when I need to." As I started to fade out, and Chichiro's presence began to fill in the empty space of my body, I added, almost as an after-thought, "Be careful around her."

I couldn't see her expression while I was changing, but I knew it was pretty confused. She slipped onto her bed (I was on the floor), I assume, to have an advantage of a higher vantage.

Chichiro opened my eyes and glared around the room. The lights were off, but she could see perfectly. I'd always envied her for her night vision. I had better night vision than a normal human's, but it still wasn't near as good as hers.

She didn't say anything. Neither did T'nuviel…I don't think T'nuviel knew that Chichiro was out.

Finally Chichiro grew tired of the silence, since she didn't like to be out without purpose, and she sighed.

T'nuviel's head moved slightly to look at me. Her eyes were good enough in the dark to see where my eyes were, but not good enough to focus on them completely.

"Hail, Chichiro," she said. She didn't mean to worship her, it was more of a greeting.

"Hn."

Chichiro sensed Hiei after she said his favorite phrase, and she glared around the room. "He's here again," she snarled.

"Who's here?"

"You know. The one who killed me."

T'nuviel remained silent. I hadn't told her yet that Hiei had killed me.

"Hiei?"

"Hn."

"He killed you?"

"Of course," Chichiro spat back. "Who else would?"

In my spiritual form, I winced. I wasn't angry with Hiei at all, and I didn't think I ever would be. Rather, for some reason I felt bad that she was blaming him and I was getting angry at _her_ for it.

T'nuviel remained silent.

Arisa shifted behind Chichiro, not making any contact with her, but still remaining close.

"The human's guardian thinks I'm still her."

"You're half of her," T'nuviel replied. Without Chichiro's extended senses, I would have never noticed the slightest possible increase in the time between T'nuviel's breaths. "She loves you, too."

"Love," Chichiro snarled. "Hah. What a stupid concept."

"You don't love?"

"I'm a yami." My other half's voice sounded more like 'Don't act so pitifully human' than what she'd said, somehow. "How could I?"

"Every being can love."

"Tell Him that."

Again, I was confused. Hiei, not love? Of course he could love. He loved Chichiro for so long…

T'nuviel silenced again, and spoke after Chichiro sighed. "Why do you say that?"

"Stop asking idiotic questions, Elf."

At the word 'elf' T'nuviel shifted ever the slightest from her previous stock-still position, like it had caught her off guard.

"You know what I am?"

"I'm not human," growled back my yami, as if to say that any non-human could tell what she was.

"But how could you tell my specific breed?"

"You're too…enlightened to be a normal non-human," Chichiro growled back, as if explaining elementary math to a mathematician. "I'm not completely cut off from Cha…the human's memories, besides."

I sat up. I had been sitting in the corner of the room next to Arisa and the doll house and just listening, but now I went back to be behind Chichiro. 'What were you going to call me?' I asked her, loving how cool and anime-like my spiritual voice was. T'nuviel couldn't hear it, since my only mind links at the moment were to Chichiro, and possibly Hiei.

"Silence, Hikari," she snapped back at me, and T'nuviel looked at her strangely.

"Is Rachel talking to you?"

I twitched when she used my human name, but I didn't blame her since she had to use a different name to tell me and my yami apart.

"Yes. And asking annoying questions."

"What is she saying?"

"I don't need to answer anything you say to me. And simply to kill your curiosity, I won't answer that one."

T'nuviel's voice was calm as always when she said, "Alright," in a soft, unaffected way. But I could tell she was mildly annoyed by that. "Why do you hate so?"

My yami's eyes snapped back to T'nuviel. "Would you quit it already?" she hissed, her voice angry and slightly creepy. "Stop being so utterly and embarrassingly human. You're a disgrace to our species."

T'nuviel truly _was_ unaffected by that. She never took insults seriously, and breezed past them. "I don't have a yami…forgive my questions. I don't know anything about your kind."

"You have one," Chichiro said, rolling her eyes. I grinned hugely when I saw that her presence in my body had turned my eyes red…although in my physical form I couldn't see well in the dark, I could see better than Chichiro in the dark when I was in my spiritual form. "You just obviously can't sense them."

"It is impossible for me to have one," T'nuviel replied breezily.

"Don't think so highly of yourself," Chichiro spat, scoffing at her. "Everyone has a yami. Don't act like you're prefect."

"Can yamis kill?"

"Of course."

"Than I cannot have a yami. I am unable to kill."

"Fool," my yami growled, and as her voice became lower and more forceful, I could tell her anger was rising. "Your incompetence stuns me. We _can_ kill, but not all of us _choose_ to." She shook her head to the right to throw my chin-length bangs from her face. "I would know more of yamis than you, which you openly admitted. I _am_ a yami. Stop questioning me or I'll be forced to injure you. Or," she added, a twisted, fanged grin curling across her face as she raised her hand and dragged her nails down my left arm, tearing the flesh off with the ease of a cheese-cutter through melting butter, "I could harm your precious human."

"Go ahead and hurt me," T'nuviel replied, her voice calm, but her eyes flashed dangerously, "but if you touch her body again I will find some way to hurt you without hurting Rachel."

Her defense of me killed my anger at hearing my human name again.

Chichiro laughed. Loud and mocking, and completely natural. I was amazed to hear that it wasn't fake. "You?" she chuckled out, her voice so spiteful and doubtful it made me wince. "Hurt me? Now _that's_ laughable."

T'nuviel made a strange hissing noise I'd only thought Chichiro was capable of making, and I never looked at T'nuviel entirely the same after hearing it. It was more angry than her shouting a thousand profanities, and she hissed again when Chichiro scratched my other arm.

I groaned. This wasn't going well, and I'd have to find some sort of excuse tomorrow for my Ningen parents about my arms missing half their skin.

"Don't. Touch her. Again." T'nuviel's voice was still calm as ever, but it had more force than before even though it somehow hadn't changed at all in tone.

Chichiro growled suddenly, and her arm started moving away from scratching distance. I know T'nuviel didn't do that herself, and I had to wait a while to figure out what had, but I know T'nuviel had _caused_ it nonetheless, and I blinked at her in admiration. No one had ever made Chichiro do anything before. Ever.

Chichiro just shrugged. "Fine," she growled, "just so you don't kill yourself in the process of preventing me from a few scratches—" ('More like dagger trails,' I muttered, and Chichiro silenced me with a swipe) "—on my Hikari."

T'nuviel's energy immediately changed again, back to her calm, soothing aura.

I sighed once, and settled onto the floor in an Indian-style sitting position.

Neither of them talked, until Chichiro randomly said, "I thought you were able to sense danger."

T'nuviel just looked at her and waited for an explanation.

"There's a dark spirit hovering above your bed, and you didn't sense it."

T'nuviel didn't move for a moment, and then she slipped down off the bed without looking up.

"Pitiful," Chichiro finished, and I looked up to see she had been telling the truth—there was a dark, mist-like shadow twisting slowly just underneath the veil on her bed. Chichiro whispered a spell that for the life of me I can't remember, and with a flick of her wrist the spirit screamed and disappeared.

T'nuviel began to head toward the bed, and when Chichiro moved, she immediately stopped. Chichiro took the opportunity to pull herself on to the bed by half-crawling in a creepy-as-hell way.

"I wouldn't have thought you'd allow me an advantage so simply," Chichiro said with a prideful grin. "Although, you have turned out less…amazing as I'd figured."

I knew she was lying…T'nuviel was exactly and more interesting to her as she'd predicted; my yami was just playing around to see if she could find her breaking point.

The elf before her said nothing, and eventually she said, "I can sense great pain in you."

"You can stop your pitiful attempts to sound wise," Chichiro replied, rolling her eyes again. "I feel no pain, no love, and no weak human emotions, only hate and anger."

"I don't think that's the truth," T'nuviel said near immediately. "You seem very sad." She paused. "Does it have anything to do with Hiei?"

She struck a nerve, and Chichiro immediately straightened in a shot, snarling like a rabid wolf before speaking. "You _dare_ speak his name before me?" she spat, her voice over-laid with an actual growl that made a horrifying exorcism-movie-like voice.

T'nuviel shrank back slightly (very slightly), but only by reflex. She'd lost no confidence, and I could tell she was encouraged by the reaction. "So it is about him," she mused, careful not to use Hiei's name.

"What's about him?" Chichiro groaned, regaining her intimidating, soft tone. "What nonsense are you talking now?"

"You can tell me. I don't judge."

"Ah, so you're holy in that instance as well?" the demoness mumbled back, sarcasm thick as cream in her voice.

"I'm not holy," T'nuviel replied, knowing it was sarcasm but answering as if it weren't. "And I'm not trying to offend you at all."

"Offend?" Chichiro glared at her. "Have I even _said_ that word, yet?"

"I'm just telling you ahead of time in case I do."

"Hn."

"Will you tell me, or will you remain shut up inside yourself forever?"

"Quit acting as though I'm a hopeless human teenager in dangerous need of medication," she growled back, annoyance plain and undisguised in her voice.

"I'm not. I can just sense the truth."

"Hn."

Ten minutes or so passed. T'nuviel hadn't moved since she got on the floor. I assumed she was getting uncomfortable, but she didn't show any signs of it, and her placid expression remained unchanged.

"He loves you," T'nuviel said out of the blue.

Chichiro tensed, and snapped her eyes to T'nuviel, advancing toward her, leaning off the bed, revealing her fangs. Even someone as talented as T'nuviel at controlling emotions stiffened and I could sense her fear, even if I couldn't see it. "It is not wise," Chichiro hissed, her voice the most dangerously soft it had been the entire time, and when she reached a hand out to brush a strand of T'nuviel's hair from her face so that she could see her eyes better, the elf flinched, "to anger a yami. Or to infer idiotic things to further raise annoyance toward a living being…because that living being wouldn't be living much longer."

She leaned back onto the bed again, slouching against the window behind her, and it took T'nuviel a moment to relax. I sensed her fear ebbing away, but her expression had changed slightly; it looked as though she were trying to be more careful…I'm not entirely sure how to describe an expression like that.

Chichiro sighed yet again, and she leaned against the window frame in a way that pinned my neck against the wood in one of the most painful positions possible. I winced spiritually, and Chichiro grinned toothily.

T'nuviel waited a moment before asking, "What?"

"That was late," Chichiro muttered back, then she veered her gaze to T'nuviel again. "Hurting Hikari amuses me."

T'nuviel looked as though she were getting angry again, but she controlled it this time. "If I ask you not to hurt her rather than tell you, will you stop?"

"Hn." Chichiro smirked, and told her in a mocking higher-pitched voice, "Only if you say 'please'."

"Please stop hurting her," T'nuviel said humbly, careful not to take a tone toward Chichiro, for she seemed to know that if she added any offense to the comment, the yami wouldn't listen.

"Hn," was the repeated response, but Chichiro shifted a tiny bit and propped herself up a different way that didn't hurt my neck.

"Why do you hate him so much?"

"How many times have I told you now to stop your string of stupid questions?"

"Why do you always avoid my questions with other questions?" T'nuviel quipped, smiling. I was amazed at how she was still in such a wonderful mood…almost cheery.

"Hn."

"Are you always going to avoid questions about him?"

"Hn."

T'nuviel sighed for the first time. "You're not an easy one to talk to, are you?"

"No," was the simple reply she received, in a monotonous tone.

"It isn't only curiosity that's driving me to ask these questions," T'nuviel told her, as if to correct a thought she knew Chichiro was having.

"Than what else is it?" replied the demoness in a flat, uninterested voice.

"Compassion." From anyone else, I would have found that to sound like a cheap movie rip-off line, but it seemed completely normal coming from T'nuviel.

"Compassion," Chichiro scoffed. "Another simplistic, idiotic human concept."

"It isn't simplistic," T'nuviel told her. "It's one of the most complex emotions to ever exist."

"And next you're going to tell me that love is the most complex, right?" Chichiro drawled.

"Well, it is, but no, I wasn't going to say that."

"And I'm supposed to ask you what you were going to say, right?"

"Only if you want to."

"I have nothing better to do."

"I think…that I could help you."

"Help me?" she scoffed. "What a preposterous idea. With what?"

"With your pain."

"Pain." Her voice had suddenly dropped and wasn't as mocking. Still, it was mocking somewhat, and she was still angry-sounding when she repeated T'nuviel's words.

"You can tell me, as I've said before."

"And before you said you wouldn't pry or push, and yet here we are."

Silence took over a while. For a few minutes, I almost thought they were both falling asleep, but when I tried to re-possess my body Chichiro growled and didn't let me. No, definitely not sleeping.

The growl immediately sparked words from T'nuviel. "Chichiro."

My yami's eyes snapped up to glare at T'nuviel.

"Pretty. Do you have a last name?"

"Ketsueki," Chichiro muttered, then smirked, revealing her fangs. "Means 'blood.'"

"Does it?" T'nuviel asked; I couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic or not. Her voice was serious, but comparing what Chichiro would say, it seemed almost like sarcasm. But the look in her eyes told me it wasn't.

I sighed, and stood, looking out the window. Their conversation was boring me, and I wasn't really learning anything. I glanced out on to the neighbor's roof, seeing Hiei watching Chichiro from it, intently. (I hadn't sensed him come back onto the roof from the tree, but I supposed in my spiritual form that some of my powers were less in-tune.) I sighed and looked down at my clear, spiritual toes. I had known since he came that he only stayed for Chichiro, but I had considered the possibility of him caring about me. Rather, I had quite enjoyed the idea and had nursed it into my almost believing. But seeing how differently he looked at my body when Chichiro was possessing it, I had my doubts.

I finally paid attention to T'nuviel and Chichiro's conversation again, looking up at my yami. They had somehow gotten back to the 'pain' conversation. The only real reason I began to listen again was because Chichiro was slowly bending my pinky finger backward, and I could feel the bone close to splintering.

"Why are you so masochistic?"

"I'm not," growled the demoness, "I'm sadistic. The more I hurt myself, the more Hikari suffers—now, and when she re-possesses her body."

T'nuviel sighed. "Is that your way of dealing with it—hurting others?"

Chichiro growled in annoyance. "That again. What exactly am I dealing with?"

"I'm not sure. You haven't told me."

Chichiro's growl turned into a low snarl that sounded quite like a rabid wolf…or fox. "Stop. Assuming. It is getting tediously and increasingly more angering."

T'nuviel apologized quietly, then began again, ever insistent. "The more you deny it, the more it will hurt."

"Ever the persistent one, I see."

"Ever the escape artist, I see," T'nuviel responded immediately, no offense in her voice at all.

Chichiro was silent for a short time before she said, in a more serious tone than she'd had all night, softly, "You don't know me."

T'nuviel seemed like she wanted to say something, but knew it'd be better if she refrained.

"No one knows me," Chichiro continued after a moment's pause. "Not you, not Ch—Hikari, not Him, or anyone."

"Because you won't let us."

"Fuck you, I don't need to let anyone know me." Chichiro's voice was no longer mocking. It was still angry, but it had a hint of sadness I could not detect at all before.

"Why are you so willing to stay alone? Why do you _want_ to be alone?"

"Because it's better that way," Chichiro mumbled quietly. I'd never seen her so calm, open, and…sad. It was almost as if T'nuviel had breathed a truth serum into her. "No one can hurt you if they don't know why they should."

"No one would try and hurt you. And even if they did, I wouldn't."

"'They'," my yami quoted. "You mean everyone else. The humans."

"They aren't all b—"

"They're all numb, emotionless fucks like me," the demoness spat, unexpectedly. Her anger was flaring, now. "And I hate every one of them as much as I hate myself!"

My interest sparked again, I stood, stepping a bit closer to Ravena and Arisa; Chichiro was more intimidating when she wasn't spitting threats and sarcastic comments.

"Why do you hate yourself?"

"Why wouldn't I? Who wouldn't hate me?"

"I don't."

Barely after T'nuviel finished speaking, Chichiro spat, "_Lies_! You hate me as well, you just think too highly of yourself to admit it."

"I don't hate. You or any—"

"Any of the humans," the yami snarled. "The humans who filled this world with filth and sin. They kill their own kind; not for pleasure, but for their own wants. They don't work for what they can have. They snivel on the ground and drag by every day, weighted down by their pathetic consciences, insistent upon wounding themselves again and again by using their emotions and caring. They are a weak species without point or meaning. At least, meaningless as I am as well, I am not that lowly. I am at their level, but I am not that pathetic."

T'nuviel was quiet a moment. In the silence, I brooded on Chichiro's words. It was true, at least for most of the human race; but I knew the good humans. Chichiro was saying all humans were like that. "You're wrong!" I yelled, surprised that my words came through my own body's mouth again.

T'nuviel looked up, recognizing the voice change. "Rachel?"

"She isn't back," answered my darker half. "She hated me just enough to get through, that's all."

'_I don't hate you either!_' I told her, my voice coming from my spiritual form again. '_Why can't you see that?_'

"Why can't you see that you hate me?"

"Are you talking to me, or Rachel?" T'nuviel asked quietly.

"Both, either, does it matter? You're both more insane than I am."

"We don't hate you."

"Liar. I don't care if you lie to me, but when you lie to yourself you're as good as human."

I never forgot what she said then. It was as if, in that moment, I made a silent pact with myself never to lie inside myself. I tolerated humans; hell, I was emotionally attached to a few. But I never wanted to be one. Ever.

T'nuviel said nothing.

'_Do you hate me?_' I asked Chichiro quietly. I could see by the expression on T'nuviel face that she did not hear my words, but somehow perceived them without hearing.

"Yes!" Chichiro cried, as if triumphant. "I hate you _all_!" Then she applied severe pressure to the finger she'd been toying with, snapping it like a twig.

I yelped, my eyes tearing involuntarily, and I whimpered lightly, snapping back into my own body as Chichiro left it. I knew she'd be back. She wasn't done for the night, and she was probably just taking the time to observe and enjoy my pain, while cooling off.

T'nuviel couldn't tell the difference. I didn't alert her to the fact, because I considered trying to heal my finger without her knowing. I didn't want her to hate Chichiro. For whatever reason, I was attached to my yami even through how horrible she was. I could only guess that it was only because she was my other half, and I had to by nature. Anyway, I felt guilty asking her to heal things for me. I knew it pained her to heal things, because she felt the pain of the one she healed.

Chichiro slid back into my body soon after I finished setting my finger back into place, though I didn't have time to heal it before she returned.

"So, elf. Learned anything?"

"Do you want to love him?" The question caught even me off guard. It seemed so random, and Chichiro's breath caught in my chest, before she let out a low hiss. It wasn't an angry hiss; rather it sounded almost like submission.

"No," she said finally. "I…don't want to. I…" She stopped.

T'nuviel watched her a while, before saying, "Do you already love him?"

Chichiro flinched at the word 'love'. She looked like she was about to cry, then her eyes hardened, and she gritted her teeth, glaring at T'nuviel coldly. "No. I hate him. I hate him so much it hurts me to look at him."

I winced again. The pain in my finger seemed nothing compared to her words. I wondered if Hiei would continue loving her despite what she said; after all, that was one of the cruelest things Chichiro could possibly say about him.

T'nuviel just looked into Chichiro's eyes, and seemed satisfied. "I don't believe you."

Chichiro just stared at her in disbelief. "What?"

"I don't think you _can_ hate him. I think you love him. I think you always have, and always will."

"It's a lot of thinks," Chichiro snarled, her anger returning. "I hate him. And give me a single reason not to."

"Because you spent your life with him before you died."

"Before he killed me," Chichiro corrected in a rough tone. "And I never spent any time with him."

T'nuviel blinked. "What do you mean?"

"You'll see eventually," Chichiro said with a smirk.

"What do you want from this life?"

"Nothing but death. Death for all the humans and then for myself. Your breed can live on. You did not kill this planet, at least not intentionally."

"But my kind loves the humans as well as other things. We cannot live without them." She stopped for a few seconds. "And I don't believe that either."

"You don't seem to be believing anything I say now. So why are you asking me?"

"You said not to lie to myself. So I'm just trying to make you stop lying to yourself instead."

"Hn."

"What do you really want?"

"Nothing. I want to die, have it all be over. I want to be nothing."

"But you want something before that happens."

Chichiro studied T'nuviel a while, before she spoke in an angry, offended tone. "Where do you get off telling me what I want? Where do you get off telling me what I do and don't want, when you've only just met me and are simply assuming things according to my Hikari?"

"I'm not assuming. And I told you before, I don't mean to offend you. I'm trying to help you. Tell me truthfully, and I will stop asking you questions."

Chichiro considered a moment, then decided to be clueless. "Tell you what?"

"What you want from this life. Why you chose Rachel."

"I didn't choose her," she said, and a memory flickered inside me, but faded before I could catch it.

"What do you want? From this time, this place, this existence?"

Chichiro didn't answer.

"Is it him?" Chichiro looked up, her eyes blank with an emotion I could not read. "Is that what you want?"

There was silence for a short while. I was amazed to see a single tear slide down from Chichiro's bitter eyes, but as the tear dropped from her face and to the floor, her eyes faded to a duller color and became blank. "Yes," Chichiro replied faintly, "that is what I want."

She closed her eyes and did not move, then. T'nuviel didn't ask any more questions, as she promised, and slowly my yami faded from my body, and I came back into it.

T'nuviel knew, as I got off the bed and on to the floor, that we had switched. She then began to tell me what had happened, in an excited tone; I grinned at her the entire time. I loved seeing her so happy, and when she had accomplished something—like getting Chichiro to open up to her—she was the happiest.

"She was so interesting. It was hard to talk to her, and she was kind of creepy, but she's so interesting."

That was said every few sentences, near the same exact words every time. And then it switched from 'creepy' to 'angry', and then to 'sad'.

I finally said, "I know, T'nuviel."

She talked for about three more minutes after that, finishing up narrating, slightly skewed from what I remembered happening (but only slightly) before she dragged her pillow to the ground and laid down.

I blinked, then shrugged and laid on my pillow as well. It was odd to be plunged into darkness again, after seeing so well.

Me and T'nuviel talked about nonsense things in tired tones for about twenty minutes before our voices faded and we began to fall asleep.

I looked out the window one more time, and out there, I saw the Red Eye.

The Red Eye, which I have not explained as of yet, is something I see every once and a while that signals that there is danger. I rarely remember what happens afterward. The Eye itself wasn't really an eye—it was just a small red dot that reminded me of an eye. It only flashed, but when I saw it, I immediately knew there was danger.

"T'nuviel," I said quietly (She had been told about it, and knew what it was), "I just saw the Red Eye."

"Rachel," she replied in a mumbling tone, "go to sleep."

I raised my eyebrows, sitting up slowly, thinking '_Well, if you lives mean that little to you, by all means, sleep.'_

My consciousness began to fade, and I felt myself collapse, my eyes flashing over to her clock as I fell backward. It read '2:13'.

I laid in the dark a moment, before sitting up. It felt as though I should have passed out, but it had only lasted for a few seconds, and I remembered my chain of thoughts the entire time, fully awake, while my eyes stared at nothing in the dark.

That always happened as well. I'd just randomly collapse, my body going limp, after seeing the Red Eye. I sighed, turning over, facing the clock.

My jaw locked in my yawn, and I stared at the hands of the clock a moment, re-checking again and again.

3:47.

It definitely hadn't been that long since I collapsed. I remembered everything that happened in-between, and it had only lasted about five seconds.

Utterly confused, I shrugged it off thanks to an over-whelming exhaustion, and I ignored the pain of my finger, and the new pain on my side, which had appeared randomly, as I faded into sleep.


	7. The Beginning

**Authoresss's Note:** Sorry for the short chapter…I promise the next will be longer. But, hey, at least I'm actually getting back into writing this one.

**Disclaimer:** Neither Hiei, nor Yu-Yu-Hakusho is mine.

**Claimer:** Chichiro is mine, Kaze is BritKit, Aria is FoxWitch. While not all the characters are not mine, all writing, storylines and concepts in this fanfiction (Save any YYH references) are.

* * *

"Hiei! What did you _do_!"

I glared at the huge scratch marks across my abdomen, and the large cut along my ribs, which looked like a sword slash, then lowered my shirt to glare out the window.

"How did _I_ do that?" Hiei growled mildly, not in the least surprised that I'd blamed him.

"Well, gee, you're the only one I can think of who'd be able to cause something like that." I restrained a wince as my body became pissed at me for using my ribs so much and sent a shockwave of pain through my torso.

"Hn. If you're saying it was me—"

"I'm not," I snapped back, "I'm just saying that is has to be your fault that it happened. I mean, I don't even remember getting these! I can understand it when I forget how I got a bruise, or a small scratch, but these are _not small!_"

Hiei smirked. "Glad you noticed. There is some sort of substance behind your eyes, then. And here I was figuring your skull was empty and growing cobwebs."

"Oh, shut up," I growled. He wasn't aware, but though I knew he didn't mean it, his words stung me. I was used to my friends saying things like that, but with how little faith I had in Hiei's liking of me, I took automatic offense to it. I just acted like it was sarcastic offense. "Are these your scratches or something?" I added, indicating the Ofuda's work.

"No. I'd never get myself hurt that badly, at least not lately. Those creatures would celebrate to simply graze me, let alone scratch me up like a cat's post."

I rolled my eyes. "So, then, are you going to explain it?"

"And do you assume I know everything?" Hiei muttered back, inferring he didn't know how it happened.

I knew he did and persisted a short while before giving up on the use of it, sighing and returning to my room from the bathroom, where I'd used the mirror.

A few days had passed since I had gone to T'nuviel's. About a week, but in the summer I was never quite sure of the amount of days gone by.

"You know your big talk about how the Makaian soldiers would 'celebrate' to barely get you?" I said curtly as I sat on my bed, tracing the lines of the scratch marks lightly over my shirt and enjoying the tiny burn they gave when I did so. Hiei just glanced at me from behind the screen, laying backward in the tree. "What about your shoulder? That doesn't seem so 'grazed' to me. Feels like there's a bloody dagger stuck up your shoulder bone."

"Hn." Hiei still was uncomfortable with the concept of the Ofuda, as if he didn't understand why I'd do something like that in the first place. "I said 'lately'. As of the past few weeks, the Makaian Escque aren't in such large of numbers."

I blinked, playing with the word 'Escque' in my mind before asking about it. "What the hell is that?"

"Escque? The demon term for these soldiers is Makain Escque. It doesn't translate exactly into 'soldier', but it's a close enough concept."

I laid on my stomach on the bed, facing the window but with my head on my arms and sideways, not looking at him. "Can you teach me demon?"

Hiei snorted. "Like your mind could understand more than a few words," he muttered back with slight distain. "You suffered through Spanish with horrible comprehension last year."

I was about to say, 'Yeah, I know' and ask how much harder demon was, but then it struck me: Hiei hadn't been around when I was in school and taking Spanish. "Wait…how did you know that?"

"Hn. Just because you sensed me later than my arrival doesn't mean I've only been here as long as you've been aware of me."

I blinked. "Uhm…what does that mean?" I looked over at him from the corner of my eye. "You some kind of stalker or something?"

I heard Hiei give a sound that was quite like a 'hn', but more of a short laugh fit into one. "I suppose that's the simplest way of putting it without having to explain."

I furrowed my brows; I'd expected him to deny it. "The hell?" I would have mentioned that I didn't think he liked me at all, and was only sticking around for Chichiro, so had no reason to hang about before she made herself known, but I knew I'd feel funny admitting that. "Why?"

"Hn."

"Fine. Be that way."

I sighed and sat up, pushing myself to my knees and then falling backward on to my pillows. It was dark out, around ten, and I was supposed to be getting to bed within the next two hours. Usually I ignored the rule and stayed up an hour or two more, but I was actually feeling in need of sleep.

So I thought a 'goodnight' to Hiei (It would have seemed weird to say it out loud for whatever reason), and slept.

In sleep, my mind is open to Hiei. I can't block dreams from him. At least, then I couldn't. I never really dreamt of anything worthy of blocking anyway, but it was still a bit weird to know that as soon as I fell asleep, I was vulnerable to intrusion into my memories. Whatever thoughts I blocked from him in the day were easy prey at night, but if his jagan dug too deep I woke up and immediately he was thrust from my mind. So he never really did much in the way of invasion. At least that I know of.

I was woken this night, not by his jagan, but his voice. "They're here."

It seemed eerie enough of words that I expected my hairs to stand on end, but they didn't. I groaned lightly, sitting up and stretching, rubbing my eyes before looking at the clock.

4:15.

My dad would be getting up soon. And I sure as hell wasn't into the night/early morning schedule that I'd be used to in the next year yet.

"Hiei, what the hell are you thinking? It's bloody four in—"

"I know. But I think you'll agree that your life and those you live around's lives are more important than a few missed hours of sleep."

That woke me up fast. "Say what?"

Hiei sighed. "I'm getting sick of explaining this to you every morning, so I'll allow you to remember from now on—I need you to help me fight the Makaian Escque."

I stared blankly at him.

…I was way too tired for this. "…What?"

"You know those random 'pass out' spells you have? You only pass out momentarily, and then I revert your body to what it really is and you aid me in battle."

"'Revert my body to what it really is'?"

"Yes. The slight addition of unneeded weight you have now is only because of your human essence. So I simply extract it from you and contain it somewhere else until you return. It makes you a better fighter."

"…Uh…huh."

Hiei rolled his eyes. "No time for explanation, come on." I realized then that the screen on my window was off, and he came into my room, pressing his right index and pointer finger to my brow, closing his eyes.

It was the first physical contact he'd had with me since he arrived, and the feeling of his slightly-calloused hands on my face nearly sent my head spiraling off my neck and down the stairs.

But I suddenly couldn't think anymore…not about the feeling of his hands, and not about what he'd been talking about before. Nothing crossed my mind save thoughts of how wonderful the new flow of energy from my body felt.

…Wait. New flow of energy?

My consciousness slammed back into me, and suddenly I felt more alive than ever before. Stronger. Like I could do anything. I actually felt confidence, and whatever random, irreparable biological depression I normally had was gone. I was happy. I stood, sliding off my bed with what would only be described as near-grace, and I looked over at Hiei with sight so clear I felt as though I'd been blind all the years of my life. My sense of smell was rocketing, and I could differ a thousand scents from one another without having to think about it; my hearing was so exact that I could hear the pulse in my rat's chest from where I stood.

I looked down at my hands, which were slightly longer-fingered than before, and thinner. My arms didn't have any extra weight to them, and my muscles were more defined. Nowhere near a body-builder or anything, but healthy.

My form was lithe and trained.

"What…did you do?"

"I took whatever humanity you had from you. This is what you really look like."

"But…I'm still in a human form."

"No. It's true you don't have fox ears or tails, but you aren't human."

"…Oh."

I was too surprised and pleased to say anything else.

"Enough fawning over yourself. We have to go."

"I don't know how to fight!"

"You know well enough to aid me," he replied, and grabbed my wrist, pulling me out the window and on to the tree branches. He sprang quickly onward, and I just stood there, wondering how to follow.

Hiei reappeared, and sighed. "Get down from there and run. You have more endurance than you realize."

"…But I'm not fast."

"No. Even in this form you aren't compared to me, but you can follow with your senses."

"…M'kay."

I was dazed, and I felt clueless and incompetent, but I followed nonetheless on quicker legs than I remembered. I always prided myself in comparison to any non-human I knew in how well I could sense spiritual energies, but this new body was insane. I could track Hiei completely without concentration, and when he was out of view I knew instinctively which way to go.

I didn't feel like I should be proud of how well my new body was doing, because Hiei had done it…but this is how I was supposed to be, as he said. I had just been weighed down by the human essence in me. This was me. I could be proud. But I still wasn't anyway. Guess pride is a human thing as well.

I set off at a run after Hiei, down the street-lamp lit roads, not stumbling or tripping at all. If I leapt I could jump far; if I tried to run faster, I could, and barely lost any energy. And I could feel my own powers rippling around me.

I'd never felt so magnificent. But I did then. Pride came back, I guess.

When I finally arrived to where Hiei had led me (I hadn't paid attention to the scenery…I'd just went wherever my senses told me to.) I slowed and walked through a parking lot, and then came upon a large warehouse.

"I managed to gather them here," said a voice from next to me, and I looked over at Hiei, who'd randomly appeared. "They're more easily slaughtered when they're all together."

I blinked. "Don't they know they're being conned when you take them into places like this?"

"Hn. Of course not. These are the brainless, lesser ones. It's the demon soldiers you need worry about."

"'Demon soldiers'?" I quoted. My voice even sounded a bit different. Not by much, but it was clearer. "There are demon Makaian…Escque—" I carefully pronounced the word. "—too? I thought they were all just the corpse-things, like in my bathroom."

"No. The demons are the ones who were able to wound me."

"I see."

"I'm going to disengage the powers of the Ofuda." I looked over at him, as if to say 'Why?' and 'You can do that?' at the same time. "Don't get all pissy about it, I'll revert its abilities back to normal when we're done here, but I don't want you distracted at all if I injure myself. You injure easier than I, and you don't need both ours if we do happen to hurt ourselves."

"Alright." Everything was still so strange to me.

When the large doors opened, and the soldiers spilled out, a rank, pungent scent filled the air and stung my eyes and nostrils. The walking corpses smelled no better than they looked, and their ghostly moans offered no comfort.

Hiei threw a sword down to me, which I surprised myself by actually catching. I looked up to see he was on a pile of crates, not even looking at me as he gave the weapon to me. I hadn't noticed that he'd been carrying two swords, but I suppose under the cloak it was difficult to see.

I looked at the sword, which was surprisingly light (Probably once again due to my new strengths), like it was a toy boat at the scene of a shipwreck in the middle of the ocean. _What does he expect me to do with this?_ I wondered, but for some reason I had faith, minor at least, in my ability to use it.

I raised it into a position that before I would have not considered. I guess I knew how to use a sword…Maybe in one of the other times that Hiei had mentioned, when he made me forget what happened, he had shown me.

In any case, there was a large amount of corpses heading toward me in their eyeless stench, but a huge black energy signal wafted off their rotting bodies and chilled me to the bone. They were more powerful than Hiei made them sound.

Hiei had disappeared from the crates, and I could sense him inside the building. For a moment I nearly panicked, but then a strange calm came to me, and I raised the sword higher, tightening my grip on the hilt, and slashed at the nearest soldier. He screeched as I slashed downward from the tip of his left shoulder to the right side of his waist, cutting him in half, and he slid downward to the ground in separate pieces, making a strange gurgling noise as black, rotting blood pooled around his body. I shivered lightly, but became used to the sight as soon as that first soldier died.

Then I lost all fear, whatever I had retained, and all remorse for killing them. I never kill anything on purpose, and I even had no desire to kill these stinking creatures, but in that moment I lost my feeling toward it, and I became a flurry of sword slashes, grinding my way into the crowd of them. Pieces of their decaying bodies flew onto others of their kind as I swiped a torso from a waist here, and an arm or leg there.

I almost enjoyed it.

That is, until I lost my sword.

I had somehow let two get behind me, and they forced the hilt from my hands, and I spun on them, cracking their heads together and ripping into the backs of their necks with my bare hands. My gag reflex activated slightly when their arteries and brittle bones squished out of the way of my hands like cold chicken wings, but nothing came into my throat and it calmed itself before I continued.

The two years I'd taken of karate became randomly more expert and disciplined as I continued to barrel through the entourage of soldiers still pouring from inside the warehouse. I felt as though Chichiro, or someone of the like, had possessed my body and I was just watching. My movements were so fluid and trained, but there was no true doubt in my mind that I was doing it.

Just as I got through the doors of the warehouse, and I saw Hiei fighting off soldiers from above in the higher lofts near the railings, I raised my arm to punch through another's face, but a roar of pain came to my left shoulder. Not the actual shoulder, but the skin in-between the tip of my arm and neck, where people pinch others to knock them out. The muscle there felt like it was on fire and screamed in pain, and I was barely able to turn my head (Moving my neck pulled on some tendon in the place in agony and it made the roar of pain worse) to see a solider clamping its huge, stinking jaws onto my flesh, its rotting teeth feeling stronger than that of any living creature I could think of.

Whatever triggers people to pass out when that pressure point is clenched in someone's hands is no different when it's bitten. Especially not when it's bitten hard and mercilessly and is nearly completely torn off. My sight slid inward in a black wave toward my pupils before I could see nothing, and I felt my body convulse lightly as my legs failed.

Then I knew no more.


	8. Fights, Memories, Scars

**Authoress's Note:**See? Longer. Not by much…but it's better than the last chapter.

**Disclaimer:** Neither Hiei, nor Yu-Yu-Hakusho is mine.

**Claimer:** Chichiro is mine, Kaze is BritKit, Aria is FoxWitch. While not all the characters are not mine, all writing, storylines and concepts in this fanfiction (Save any YYH references) are.

* * *

When I woke, I wasn't sure if that's actually what I'd done—woken up, that is. Until my head started throbbing and my shoulder began to burn when I tried to move. Before, I'd figured I was dreaming or something to the effect…because I couldn't see.

I'd never thought about blindness much before. But when I had, I'd always assumed it'd be like when you squeezed your eyes shut and covered them with your hands, and your vision was near completely black. But it wasn't. It was darker, like there was no light in the world, but I could faintly make out shapes anyway. Even _I_ didn't know how that worked.

I reached up to see if there was something across my eyes, but there wasn't—not even my eyelids were closed, and I felt my fingers touch my actual eye. I drew them back and flinched violently.

"Calm down, you aren't blind."

I automatically tried to look to the source of Hiei's voice, but I failed miserably and quickly lost sense of direction and forgot where to look. I didn't say anything…it was still too odd, and I wasn't calm enough to try and speak.

"It's temporary. Your sight will come back soon enough."

"W-what's going on? What happened?"

"I'm not sure, but you'll have to trust me."

I felt around me with my right hand (my left wouldn't respond…if it did, I couldn't feel it. I guess the huge bite on my shoulder killed the nerves. Hopefully that was temporary as well.) and gathered that I was in my bed. "How do you know if you don't know what happened?" I asked. I disliked greatly how much more frantic my voice sounded than I really was, but Hiei could sense that it was just a trick of my voice and didn't tell me to calm down.

"I told you to trust me. Are you planning on that, or not?"

I sighed and tried to shrug, but that required movement of my left shoulder and I felt myself wince, then I whimpered lightly. Yes, tolerating pain was easy for me normally, but this added on to Hiei's wound on his own shoulder was a bit much. I wasn't used to it. "Yes," I finally managed, and didn't ask more on that topic.

I tried to sit up, but Hiei's voice stopped me again. "Don't. You have no need to move, and it would only make your injury worse."

I growled to myself, but stopped, sighing heavily.

…Damn, this sucked.

"If it would make you stop attempting to get up," came Hiei's voice again, but this time it sounded slightly closer, "I could ease my jagan's power into your sight. It would let you see, but it would hurt."

I considered. "Was the anime correct in that jagan's hurt like a bitch?"

"More like hell," was the reply.

I moaned lightly. "Would it hurt as much as getting one implanted?"

"God, no. Not even close. Not that you can remember the pain, though, so I have nothing to compare it to." He stopped for a moment before continuing, seeming to find a comparison anyway. "I suppose it's about half the pain of my shoulder and yours put into the place of your migraines."

"…Aww, damn." I sighed. "And if you don't do the whole jagan-trick, what then? How long will it take for my sight to come back?"

"I'm not sure about that either. Probably less than a day, but this won't be the only time you loose your sight. Better to get the initial pain over with. After the first, it will dull each time."

"…You're kidding me, right?" I replied flatly. "How do you know I'll keep loosing it? …How do you know anything about it?"

"Must I reiterate the part about trust?"

"…No," I mumbled submissively. "Do you know when it will happen next?"

"Sorry, no." His voice didn't sound too sorry. More like impatient. "Do you want your sight or not?"

"You mean _your_ sight," I corrected in an equally unenthused voice. "I don't know. If I knew when it'd happen next, I'd decide faster."

"What's there to think about?" he growled.

"Well, gee, I am in mild pain after that thing nearly ripped my shoulder off. Or maybe it did, I don't know, _I can't see it_." I sighed again, calming myself before trying a second time. "If I knew I'd be more healed the next time, I'd say do it then, 'cause I wouldn't have to deal with other pain."

"The more built up your pain is, the better you'll be able to tolerate it," he replied immediately.

"Tolerate the jagan, or pain in general?"

Hiei snorted. "Nothing will make you be able to stand the jagan better save yourself."

"…Right, then." I sighed. "So, you're telling me if I do this now, I can tolerate pain better?" A simple 'hn' was his reply. "…You are so just feeding me lines."

Another 'hn', but it was one of those half-laugh ones that made me giggle every time he used it in the anime. I wasn't amused enough by this conversation to notice it was one of my favorite Hiei-lines from the show. "Of course I am." He grew serious again. "I wasn't joking, ningen." For whatever reason it made me feel fuzzy inside whenever he called me ningen. (It was, after all, the only thing he ever called me besides that one time he had slipped and called me Chichiro)

I nodded. "Yeah, I know." I felt my eyes blink, but I couldn't even see the shadow of my eyelid. Nothing changed when it happened. I thought hard for a few seconds more, then willed myself to stop being so human about pain, stopping myself from shrugging as well. "Alright. If I need you to stop, will you?"

"Hn. I'm not trying to torture you."

"Right. Okay." I tried to look at him, but I had no clue where he was, so after failing for a few seconds more, I stopped attempting. "Go ahead."

Before I was even aware that I was finished talking, a crushing pain flew to my head. It came in waves, starting on my brow and waving out to my eyes like bad goggles. But as quickly as it had started, the pain numbed away and I was suddenly not aware of anything save where I was.

…I wasn't too sure about that, either. It felt like I was floating, but I still couldn't see. Then, a scene began before my eyes. It felt as though I _were_ the woman I was looking at, but she looked nothing like me. She had long, straight black hair with wavy, beyond-her-chin bangs, and green cat-slit eyes. Beneath her eyes were black, zig-zag marks…demon marks. Then, when I noticed her black-tipped blue fox ears pinned against the back of her head, I realized I was looking at Chichiro. Not my yami, but my "fanfiction" character. My past life. The reason Hiei was here.

As soon as the realization came to, I was suddenly in the place I'd been looking at. It was a forest of some sort, but none like those in the human world. I didn't recognize a single tree…not their type, or the sound of their voices. But they were mourning.

I looked back to Chichiro, only to see Hiei holding her, looking completely horrified and dumbfounded. I blinked, then noticed the large amount of blood spilling from her chest. I winced at the sight. Whatever people in movies were thinking, real blood looked nothing like the fake crap they threw on people. It was darker, less purple and berry-like in color. True, I knew what blood had looked like before; after all, I wasn't an idiot, but I'd never seen so much in one place before.

"You…said that?" I looked back at Hiei when he spoke; his voice had more emotion and pain than I'd ever assumed Hiei capable of, and I had so much pity for him I felt nearly overwhelmed. "It was you the entire time? The _entire_ time?"

Chichiro winced, her body shuddering lightly and she curled inward into his arms. "I'm so sorry…this is all my fault."

I was beyond confused. I didn't remember ever writing this out…maybe this was how she died the last time, I figured.

…But that meant that Hiei had done this to Chichiro. Which made no sense to me, with the emotion in his eyes and voice.

"Don't say that," was Hiei's insistant reply.

For whatever reason, I was angry. I didn't know why, and I didn't know who at. But this entire scene made me angry for some reason. Almost enraged. I rarely grew truly angry; sure I was pissed off a lot, but rarely angry.

Hiei tried to pick her up bridal style, but when she protested weakly he stopped. "No, don't," she whispered, her voice hoarse and pained. A trail of blood slid from the corner of her lips to her chin, and I winced at the sight of it. "It hurts…"

Hiei was trembling; whether it was with fear, sadness or anger was unknown to me. "I can't leave you here," he choked, his voice wracked with grief as he lowered himself and Chichiro back down to the ground.

"Then don't," she replied softly.

Her voice was so quiet, and I had to strain to hear it, but the words were familiar to me for whatever reason, and as Hiei spoke next, I was able to mouth his words along with him. "I'll save you…you're not leaving me."

I felt myself shaking lightly as well. I had written things like this before, and they'd never effected me at all. I'd been confused as to why my friends ever found my writing depressing, because I was numb to it. Maybe because I had written it. Whatever reason it was had gone now, and sadness washed over me and made me feel sick. The lost persistence in his voice wounded me…even as he spoke he knew she was going to die. And yet his voice was still fierce…his love for her dripped off of every word.

"Don't kid yourself." If possible, Chichiro's failing voice was even softer now, and I could sense her spirit energy fading even as she spoke. There was a pause between her words as Chichiro drew her lips to his weakly, and when she closed her eyes a stray tear slipped from her eye. "I…don't think I'm coming back this time." It sounded more like a confession than anything. "I love you…but…it's over."

Hiei was trembling still, and I wanted to look away so badly, but something kept my eyes on what was unfolding before me. "No! You're going to live!" Again, his own knowledge of the lost cause of his words was in his voice. "I'm going to save you!"

I could see Chichiro felt her heart torn in half as she listened to his false promises, pleading her to hold on. I felt the same way as I listened, feeling helpless. "I can't," she choked finally. "Just…remember…please don't…don't…" She let a weak smile crack her lips. "Don't do anything stupid, needle-noggin." She smirked lightly, her eyes closing, no doubt involuntarily. "Damn jaganshi," she muttered at him. "You're too emotional for a sadist."

"Chichiro," he choked, narrowing his eyes in sorrow as tears streamed from them. "Don't talk like that…I love you…please…for us…for our _child_…"

I started at his words, confused. _Child…?_

"I can't…I'm so sorry…" I flinched as she was whispering. Something told me this was the last time she would speak. "Ai…shiteru, Hiei." And her energy was gone; I sensed no life in her form.

Before I could any more, suddenly the image was gone, ripped from my mind and I was back in my room. It was then that I remembered the true purpose of what was supposed to have happened. I could see, but it was blurry and I couldn't feel Hiei's jagan in my mind. Apparently I had regained my own sight without his help, but…what I had seen…

"Hiei," I started, but when I looked over at the tree, the branch was only wavering. He wasn't there, but by the looks of it he'd just left. I blinked, then sighed. _Guess he knows what I saw._ I brought my right hand to my face, leaning on to my arm. Had that been his memory? Or mine?

Or maybe I was over-reacting and it hadn't been a memory at all. But somewhere I knew that was wrong. When Hiei came back (_If he does_, I thought, only half-worried that that was the case.) I would ask him. I just wasn't sure he'd want to or would answer.

* * *

Nothing happened for the next few days. That was my life—one day of interesting things, maybe two or three if I was lucky, then nothing for a week or so.

As far as I was concerned, I was wasting summer. But I didn't talk to Hiei; I figured when he wanted my help again he'd ask. I didn't assume he'd resume chit-chat for a while. He had come back the following morning, but I didn't push to ask about what I'd seen (However hard that proved to be.).

And then, exactly a week later, he woke me up around two in the morning.

My shoulder was still healing, and for whatever reason it made me light-headed, so it took me a moment to register. "Mmm…Hiei?" I mumbled, tired.

"Hn. Come on, ningen. Get up."

I stirred in my bed for a moment, willing myself awake. I had a headache again, but after that pain when Hiei did his "fun" jagan-trick, I wasn't about to complain. "What is it? Makaian…whatever's again?"

"Yes. But not the 'corpse-things', as you've so graciously dubbed them. The demons."

I sat up, my head buzzing angrily, as if yelling at me for sitting up so quickly. "But I failed miserably with even the corpse-things. How do you expect me to fight demons?"

"Hn. The other fights were training."

"…And you expect it to have worked?"

"Not entirely." _Gee_, I thought sarcastically, _glad he cares._ "But even _I_ have to submit to the fact that I need help with the demons. And since Kurama and the idiot detectives—" I was confused a moment when he put an 's' at the end of detective, then I realized Kuwabarra was probably the 's'. "—are in Makai trying to stop the flow of soldiers there, I'll have to go against my better instincts and use you."

"Great," I mumbled. "I feel loved." For whatever reason, as I normally had none for things like this, I regretted using the word 'love'. I winced, but Hiei didn't act like he took notice of it (I knew he had, however. Guess he did have a kind streak occasionally.).

"Hn. Hurry."

I stretched with only one arm, already used to what made my left arm hurt, and slid from the bed. "Do I have time to get dressed in something other than pajamas?"

Hiei replied in a flat tone. "No." I sighed, but he continued. "But if you wish, when I change your form I can give you 'fight-worthy' attire." I grinned and nodded, and Hiei pressed his two fingers to my forehead same as last time, and within a few moments of nothingness, I woke, my body changed again. "That took shorter than the last time," he commented. "Already used to your body?"

I shrugged. "Probably." I looked down, finding a knee-length kimono on, only a camisole and mesh shirt on underneath. I was barefoot, but my feet had bandages from my ankles to just before my toes, and my arms had the same, from elbow-to-knuckle. I perked a brow. "The bandage-thing doesn't seem much like you…I don't think you'd use that as a fashion statement on other people, ne?"

"Hn. No, I wouldn't." He looked critically at the outfit, flickering onto the tree branch outside my window. "Figuring you wouldn't like anything I'd consider fitting, I simply gave you what you were thinking." He shook his head and leapt down to the road, calling back, "Lay off the anime for a while. It's corrupting your sense of fashion."

I snickered, only mildly offended. I didn't _have_ a sense of fashion, but I knew what he meant—if I were thinking for practicality rather than look, I wouldn't have chosen what I was wearing.

Springing down after him, following his energy signal, I set off at a run. It hurt to do so, simply because I was used to moving my arms, which activated my shoulder's need for movement as well.

I quickly adjusted, and found that if I brought my hands to a specific shape—straight out, with all my fingers erect and pinned together—and moved my arms a certain way that didn't need as much shoulder-movement, it didn't hurt as bad. Barely noticeable, in fact, and I could run faster. I soon became accustomed to that type of running, and even after my shoulder healed I would continue to use it.

Back in the present, however, I ran farther than I probably ever had before. By the time we were at least three times past the time it took to get to the warehouse—it would have taken about an hours walk for a normal human to arrive at the warehouse—I started loosing vigor and became bored. I still wasn't too tired, and it hadn't taken very long, but we were going through the outskirts of the city now, a place I didn't find very inviting. Had we been in a wide-open area, I would have loved it. But the thickness of the air, and the rough, hard ground bothered me and killed my want for running. I almost felt claustrophobic when I ran next to the fenced-in high-rises. The graffiti kept me amused for a while, but the bandages on my feet were a bit hot. Granted my strides when I ran were large, and I only used my toes, but the tips of the bandages were getting scraped, and with the passing time were only getting hotter.

_I can't see why you'd want them on your arms_, came Hiei's voice in my head, _but keep them on your feet…they do help._

I nodded. I hated shoes, so they were out of the question, but I supposed, after Hiei spoke, that the bandages were doing near the same thing. My toes were thick-skinned enough not to be affected, but just past them wasn't. It probably would have been much worse if I hadn't had them on.

Sighing, I felt like a child as I contacted Hiei again. _How much longer?_

_For me, not much. For you, maybe twenty minutes._

I growled to myself, mildly annoyed. _Great_, I thought, but didn't send it to Hiei, as I figured he wouldn't care.

When fifteen minutes were up, I finally paid attention (As with the last time, I failed miserably to keep my mind on where I was going, and just followed Hiei's energy and zoned out completely.) and realized I was less than a mile from Hiei. I grinned lightly, and shot off, re-inspired, at a sprint the rest of the way.

I was panting lightly when I got there, but I recovered myself as quickly as possible. Hiei was waiting for me, and I almost wondered why—after all, if we _had_ to go to fight, why would he wait to? Whatever the reason, Hiei threw me a sword again, which made me thankful that my left arm was always being injured and not my right, my dominant hand. The strip of shoulder above my collar bone was burning still, but it wasn't the type of feeling like it was on fire…more like someone was applying constant friction that _should_ have made it burn…Or something like that.

"You ready?"

"As much as possible," I groaned, unsure of myself and nervous. The last time my body reverted to its actual form, I was completely positive in what I was doing, even when I was bitten, I still had confidence I'd get through it. Not this time.

Though, as I thought of the last time, anger burned within me. The second time in the same month that I had been truly angry, though this time it was with myself, not unknown. I was suddenly pissed off at the fact that I had gotten wounded, and if I'd been in two places at once, I probably would have hit myself. The random anger made me wonder later on if the transformation was such a good idea, but then I didn't care. I knew the anger would be an asset in fighting.

Hiei seemed to sense my anger. "Don't let your emotions take hold," he growled at me. "Don't ever let your emotions into your fights." I glared up at him and said nothing, and he gathered that I wouldn't let his words through my skull, least not in the case of anger, and gave it up, smirking. "Stubborn as ever," he commented, and I just shrugged. "Hn. Let's go."

I nodded, gripping my sword by my side, and I flipped my bangs out of my face; my hair was in a ponytail. To realize why that was so odd for me, you'd have to know that the only times I ever put my hair up was when my human mother made me, and when I occasionally decided to when we were going somewhere formal. I of course kept my bangs down—they were parted on the sides on my face, chin-length, but not log enough yet to pull back.

I finally took the time, in the seconds before we started fighting, to note where we were; we were in the middle of a city—probably Rochester, but I couldn't be sure, as I rarely went to cities—in the back of an abandoned school. The sides of the brick building looked charred, and it had probably been closed for a fire; the playground near where we stood was melted down, still retaining enough shape for me to recognize what it was, and a handful of children spirits stood around, their milky white eyes gazing at me with curiosity. I shivered, thinking of how horrible it would have been to never have a life past their young age, and then became confused. I didn't value my life much, and only lived because suicide seemed weak to me. _Another weird side-effect of the lack of my human essence_, I mused, guessing.

Then, as if by magic, a trail of demons began to show in the windows of the empty building. They were simple, lesser demons, but with my human-world body, each of them was close to equaling my strength. Hiei could wipe them all out easily himself, and I wondered a moment why he said he needed me to help him.

…That was before the row became a dozen rows, each holding ten or so demons. And then two dozen. And then, I lost count.

I stared, my mind near blank. _If the Makaian soldiers were sent to kill me,_ I thought suddenly, _why'd Hiei want me to fight?_

_Hn, don't pride yourself so much_, came his telepathic voice. _You aren't the only reason they're here. They came to kill the humans, as well, and what's left of our species. True, they want to assassinate you as their main target, but it isn't their only intension._

I blinked. _Why do they want to kill me, again?_

_Because if you're dead when they take over the world, they can rule it before it dies._

_Before…the world dies?_

_Yes._

I was confused again, and was about to ask what I had to do with stopping them specifically, but that was the precise moment they attacked. Not one at a time like in anime, and not all at once, either. Just about half. Which was well over one hundred for each of us.

I would have been completely unprepared if I were distracted by the subtleties of the human in me, but I snapped down into a stiff defense position and slammed my sword into the onslaught of demons without second thought now.

I surprised myself by being able to slaughter them all, and barely have lost any energy.

…Which, frankly, was just weird. After all, if I hadn't been able to handle two hundred corpses, why would I kill off just over half the amount of demons? Demons were more skilled, and I was already wounded from my last fight

Disregarding it until it would be more fitting a time to consider, I watched as the next wave of demons prepared to attack….Only to draw back and fade into the building, and I could no longer sense them.

I blinked over at Hiei, confused. "What just happened?"

Hiei didn't look at me; his crimson gaze remained fixed upon the school, and as I looked at him I felt like something in my chest was lifting me up, like the only thing keeping me to the ground was my fear of heights. And as he spoke, the feeling increased, then faded to a numbness and aching that made my chest hurt, and I looked away from him. "Hn. I assume Kurama and the others have succeeded in slowing the flow of the Escque. It simply means they're going back to help their comrades. Don't count on the break lasting."

Being cold and unfeeling directly after loosing the heightened feeling of freedom stunned me only mildly. My mind had become blank with a completely different kind of anger…Like Chichiro. "Why would they go back? They're just unfeeling creatures of death. What bond do they have to their comrades other than their goal of conquering the world? If the ones following them were just reinforcements, why would they go back? They should have carried out their purpose here and not cared. It's their nature."

Hiei glanced over at me, and I couldn't see if it was hurt or disgust in his voice…it could have been both. I wasn't about to judge it, though. "What does the word 'comrade' mean to you, exactly, if you think they'd leave their allies behind?" He 'hn'ed. "Just because they do not care in the way your perceive does not mean they do not entirely; even if that were the case, they have a sense of duty to those they fight with." Faintly, in the back of my mind, I realized he was subtly, unconsciously applying his words to himself, and the random, unexpected coldness in my mind thawed.

I shook my head. _That was weird._ I looked over at him once, then quickly looked back down, pulling my hair tie from my hair and nodding, glad to have my hair covering my face and expression despite the fact Hiei could interpret it anyway. "Yes, of course." My voice didn't have the rough edge to it anymore, and for that I was glad.

I felt his eyes criticizing and analyzing me a few moments longer, then he looked away. "Hn." I sensed him farther away immediately, and knew he had set off back toward my house.

I sat on the asphalt outside the playground fence, exhausted in a completely mental way; I still felt the adrenaline of the fight flowing through me quickly, but my mind was tired beyond what I'd ever felt. Sighing heavily, I put my face in my hands and just sat there. _The feeling I had back there was unlike anything I've ever felt before. I was so…angry. I'm not an angry person…I may seem it, but I'm not. So…why now?_

A child, a young boy, from the playground came to me, putting his hand lightly on my right shoulder. I blinked up at his seemingly-sightless milky white orbs, and smiled at the tiny spirit, thanking him with simply my expression. Spirits are odd in that they can care about anyone who they know would care about them back. If he had not come over, a different spirit would have, but the other child ghosts would not interrupt our moment. It was a ghost thing to respect another of their kind's time with a living being.

As the feeling of his hands faded, and he was back on the playground without having to move, I looked down at my feet, and noticed how thin my legs were…thin and trained. I looked away from them and stood, feeling wiry. _I don't deserve this body. I didn't do it myself._

"If you're going by 'deserve', Kurama shouldn't have been given his fox form back by command."

I looked up at Hiei, then dropped my arms, which had been hugging myself.

"It's the same thing. So unless you think just because Kurama couldn't do it by himself before he learned how means that he didn't deserve to have his real body back, I'd say you should stop criticizing yourself."

"You don't strike me as a counselor," I mumbled, looking him in the face. It seemed odd to me that I couldn't sometimes…It felt completely natural to.

"Hn. Who said I was being one? I don't want you distracted by thoughts of 'worth'."

I said nothing, and tried to cross my arms, but then my shoulder stung and I gritted my teeth, wincing lightly and unable to hold Hiei's eyes as mine closed involuntarily to flinch.

Hiei seemed to have forgotten briefly that I was injured, and recalled then. "How is it?"

I glanced up, then looked sideways at my shoulder, which again pulled the tendon below my collarbone, and again I clenched my jaw in pain. "I've been better." At any other time it would have occurred to me that it was odd, coming from Hiei, to ask about it. But as with what seemed like everything, I didn't think of considering it when I was transformed. "And you?" I looked back at him. "Been wounded?"

"Hn. Of course not. I'd pay to see them scratch me again."

I grinned. "You sounded like me for a second there," I replied, still flashing my teeth at him. Then I noticed that my fangs, which were normally at least mildly retracted, were at full length and sharp, because I could feel them poking my bottom lip. Even my lower fangs had grown mildly, but not near to the extent of my upper jaw's. "Don't make that a habit, it was kind of creepy."

Hiei looked at me oddly, then allowed himself a lightly amused smirk, which almost looked like a smile to me, but it quickly lost its touch. "Don't worry, I wouldn't dream of being like you."

I glared at him flatly, then whipped the nearest thing around—which happened to be a shard of shrapnel-like rusted metal from the playground—at him. Caught off guard, not expecting me to do anything of the sort at _him_, Hiei barely dodged it, a small laceration on his cheek. I grinned cruelly at him, despite the fact that a mirror cut appeared on my cheek as well, and all the pain was directed at my face and not his. He just stared at me, his eyes wide. "Did you just throw that at _me_?"

"Of course," I replied, still grinning arrogantly. "I say you're getting rusty, Jaganshi, if I could almost get you with that."

"…Hn."

And then he was gone again, re-starting what he had begun and heading back toward my house.

I sighed, finally deciding to follow, and sprang off with a large stride down the dark city streets.


	9. The Routine

**Disclaimer:** Neither Hiei, nor Yu-Yu-Hakusho is mine.

**Claimer:** Chichiro is mine, Kaze is BritKit, Aria is FoxWitch. While not all the characters are mine, all writing, storylines and concepts in this fanfiction (Save any YYH references) are.

* * *

I realized when I stirred the night after fighting the demon Escque and found every muscle sore that I was entering a pattern: wake up early in the morning, go out for a few hours and massacre a bunch of demons, then make up some excuse to my parents as to why I always had some new limp or sore spot, and then wake up and do it all over again the next day, more tired than the last. The whole missing-in-the-morning bit was taken care of by Hiei, who set my Dad's timer a few hours after and used his jagan to keep him exhausted until we came back.

It was earlier than the past times that Hiei woke me. This time, I woke in my transformed state, already dressed in the same, sleeveless, knee-length kimono as I wore previous. I blinked, rubbing my temples as they throbbed with the same morning headache I always woke with. I looked over at Hiei, standing outside on the branch of my tree, the screen off my window. "Why am I already like this?" I did an exaggerated wave motion with my arm to illustrate that I was indicating my body.

"Your body is getting used to being itself, and now I barely have to hint at using my energy before you shift." He smirked. "It's convenient."

I snorted. "How wonderful for you." I sat up and slid my legs to the floor, walking over to the window. I grinned as I looked out—it was raining. "So, Hiei…are we fighting to corpse-things or the demons?"

"Hn. Both." He looked back at me from his position facing my road. "But first, I need you to close the rift."

"The rift?" I asked. "What rift? And how do you expect _me_ to close it?"

"Closing rifts isn't something I can teach you. Those chosen to have the power to seal rifts cannot be taught by anyone…it just comes automatically."

"And you know I was 'chosen'…how?"

Hiei didn't say anything for a moment, and then he spoke incredulously. "Chichiro could close rifts." It wasn't a statement or reasoning…it was a 'she could do it…if you can't than you're weak' sentence.

…It made me twitch. Pissed off, I watched with cold eyes as Hiei sprang out into the rainfall and out of my sight, and I followed after a brief pause.

I lost track of time within minutes. We were going toward my town's middle school, in a more rural area. After we passed a park in the next town over, I began to wonder how long it would take for us to get there. I looked up, and saw that Hiei was running nearside me, and I blinked. "Hey," I called up, "why are you waiting for me?"

"If I go faster than you, than you wouldn't be able to follow. You won't be able to sense me far distances away when the rift is open."

"Like hell I wouldn't be able t—" My words dropped off as I looked up past Hiei and the tree line into the sky.

What looked like a huge black tear in the sky was hovering above in the clouds. It was as long as I could see either way, though I could see the end of if width-wise. It must have been a mile wide, but it looked skinny from how far away from it we were. Small black forms dropped from it, sailing through the sky and downward, though as I looked at it, the biggest living thing I'd ever seen fell with them; it looked like a legless white dragon, but from the distance we were at it appeared smaller than I knew it was; I surprised myself by being able to see it in detail in the back of my mind when I focused my gaze on it. Demon sight, I suppose. It didn't have an attractive face; it was long and looked a bit like a horse skull with yellow-white skin draped over it messily, and its eyes were sunken into their sockets and un-seeable. Huge antelope-like horns crested over its head and stopped between two bony shoulder blades a ways down a long, thin neck; it seemed it did have arms, but they were short and didn't look to be of much use, until you looked at the huge claws at the end of its defined fingers.

"H-Hiei?" I mumbled uncertainly, my sight snapping back to normal as I released my focus on the creature. "What the hell is that?"

"An entity. It had no name that can better be translated into a language you could understand. Just think of it as a 'Black Dragon Wave' that has a mind of its own without needing to be released by someone."

"Black Dragon-what?"

Hiei looked down at me, rolling his eyes, and I felt his jagan enter my mind as he tried to find a name of whatever he was talking about that I would recognize. "The Dragon of the Darkness Flame, according to the anime version of our lives."

"Oh, that." For a moment, I disproved of the other name, until I considered how much cooler a mental image 'Black Dragon Wave' brought on. "But that looks nothing like—"

"I said 'think of it as', not that it is."

"Okay." I looked sideways as the thing's huge body finally finished retrieving itself from the rift. The tear in the sky was hundreds of feet up…thousands. It could have been miles up, but the 'entity's head was nearly touching the ground as its tail exited the rift completely.

I felt light-headed for a moment at the thought of how large it was. "Can't the humans see them?" I asked as it came to my mind.

"Of course not. They are blind to everything."

"…Can't the other non-humans see them?"

"No. They can sense the rifts, and occasionally they can see portions of them, but they cannot see what it being born from the demon world because they are open."

"Than why can I see them?"

"Because you choose to."

His words rang in my ears in a strange way that somehow made me feel pleased with myself, and I tried to suppress the small smile that was playing across my lips. "How do we stop that…entity?"

"You worry about the rift when we get there," Hiei called backward without turning around. "I'll kill the entity."

"And the others? What about the other things falling with it?"

"They are already spreading their poisons across this town. There will be a large number of human casualties this time."

"But we can stop them." Hiei didn't reply. "We can, can't we?"

He didn't speak for a moment more, then said in a low tone, "We will not always win, ningen. They will pollute this earth and slowly destroy it even as we are fighting to save it."

"What do you mean? We can just chase them down. We can find them. I can use my spiritual sense to—"

"Hope is for fools." His voice was harsh now, and it made me stop speaking immediately. "Even if you could find them all one-by-one, who then would stop the flow of more? Better to let these escape and stop more from coming."

And suddenly I was angry again. "But then they will kill behind our backs! If we don't…" My thoughts changed direction and I re-formed my sentence. "The humans can't see them! How can they protect themselves?"

"They won't."

I was rendered mute for a few seconds, stunned into silence by how indifferent he was toward the subject. "How can you be so uncaring, damn it! I have friends who are human!"

"Then we will save them," he snapped back, sounding angry. "But it is a futile dream to believe we can save all the humans. It isn't possible."

I growled, close to tears. Back then, I still had the unrealistic ideals of believing the world could be redeemed, that all living things deserved to live. "Why are you waiting for me instead of stopping them now! I can find my way there—the rift isn't too hidden, in case you haven't noticed. Why are you wasting time here instead of stopping them now?"

"You don't get it, do you?" My anger was immediately killed by his voice. It was such a mix of emotions that it confused me, but released whatever anger I held toward him for his words. He was smirking, but something in his voice held an inner hurt and remembrance that made me realize he had once thought the same way I had. I had never thought of Hiei as someone who wanted to save the world or anything to the effect, and I knew he didn't hold any human in very high regard, but somehow I knew the way things were turning out wasn't the way he'd wanted them to. "If I tried to fight the demons, the entity would get away. If the entity got away, than this entire area, for hundreds of miles around, would be doomed, not just a few miles. And with how slowly it moves in comparison to how fast we are, I can still stop it."

"Than why don't Yusuke and Kurama, or _someone_ do something about the demons!"

"Who do you expect to fight?" He still wasn't looking at me, but I could sense that he was battling against his anger. "Kurama and the detectives are closing and preventing other rifts in Makai as I told you. And there are not enough demons or non-humans that we can bring in to this world who would survive its impure airs who can fight. It's a useless cause."

"…Then why do you keep fighting?" I knew he had meant that it would be useless to stop every soldier, but in the back of my mind I knew he also meant this entire concept…fighting the Escque in general. He believed that to be useless. And yet he continued anyway.

He didn't respond right away, and when he did, at least another mile was behind our feet. "Because I have to." He didn't sound like he meant that he was forced, and by his tone this appeared to be some sort of confession. I didn't look at him either as he spoke, though I wanted to badly, for fear of what I'd see in his eyes. His words were giving me a foreboding sense that I didn't quite enjoy. "If this damned planet has a few more years to survive, it should have them. Even if that time is spent in its downfall and not thriving." He snickered lightly, though it was noticeably feigned. "Think of it as an old human. It may be dying, and its disease is spreading too fast to cure, but its body keeps fighting the disease nonetheless, even though its aware of its uselessness."

It seemed completely natural for Hiei to be saying that…which, as with many other things about recent events, confused me. Hiei was so much like the way the anime had shown him, but there was a greater depth that they had never shown…He cared. And they left that out.

I didn't respond, but he didn't seem to expect a reply and said nothing further.

It took us ten minutes longer to get to below the rift, though when I got within two minutes of it I began to chant in a language I didn't recognize. Rather, I mouthed the words and said nothing out loud. The string of unrecognized spells looped soon and repeated itself, and I guessed that it was the rift-closing spell Hiei had spoken of that would come to me automatically.

And then, when I finally looked up from my running feet and the strange hand-position I had acquired to aid the incantation, I saw the 'entity'. It was smaller in all-around width than I'd assumed, but its body (not the length, but simply how tall it was when flat to the ground like a worm) was still at least three stories high. Its huge jaws were tearing into a building.

I was amazed at the lack of screams—I'd expected the air to be alive with it. And then I realized the cause for the silence and nearly retched.

Everyone was already dead. The entire town had been destroyed already. My legs felt weak, and I was barely aware of the fact that I was still moving forward. As I looked on at the strings of bodies before me, I could only wonder what the news would say. An entire town demolished by unknown, unseen causes. I willed my gag reflex not to activate, and closed my eyes tightly, but only briefly.

The corpse-like Makain Escque were feeding on the bodies of the humans they had killed, and the entity rose its head and screamed in the loudest tone I'd ever heard in my life. I winced and my hands flew upward to cover my ears, feeling blood trickle through my fingers as my eardrums bled. Hiei was already missing, no doubt finding a good vantage for attack on the beast, and I fumbled with ideas of what to do. I still felt my jaw moving lightly as my hands were plastered against my ears and jawbone, so I was still closing the rift. But the Escque had begun to notice me and were sliding away from their victims and watching me without eyes, and they had begun to crawl toward me.

There seemed to be three different types of the corpse-Escques, so I'd gathered. There were the ones in my shower, which were different only by the fact that they were less-decayed than the rest and had eyes in their rotting sockets. Then there were those like at the warehouse—stupid and sightless, but powerful nonetheless; they didn't have any notable intelligence to brag about, but they had strength and knew when and where to attack. And then…there were these newer ones that I'd never seen. Their appearances only conjured images of the devil, like they were his servants. They looked much like the warehouse Escque, but they did not walk upright like those…they just crawled on the ground and slid along smoothly, almost like a cat.

…But these soldiers certainly brought no loveable images of felines to my mind when they began hissing and groaning in strange, short noises that I can find no name for, and rapidly moved faster toward me.

Sure, the other times I'd faced my opponents with at least slight skill. But I had a sword those times. Hiei was nowhere to be seen, and I was weaponless.

Wonderful. Bloody fucking wonderful.

I got into a karate defense stance and began to swing my leg around, smacking one's abdomen from its legs, and punched another. But they were covering me faster than I could attack. I looked around frantically for some sort of weapon, and finally decided on trying out using energy. It couldn't hurt…I had nothing better to use.

Gathering energy into my fists, I was amazed into stopping momentarily when my clenched hands glowed. A sharp bite on my arm reminded me that I was fighting, and I brought my hand out into straight, stiff, blade-like positions and then separated my fingers, throwing energy in swift balls toward the creatures. When a ball hit one of the Escque, it screeched and disintegrated.

I grinned. This was going much better than before.

I smacked two Escque off my back and thrust my arms forward, slamming into the large row directly in front of me with a huge trail of energy, and then I leapt upward and threw a kick in a circular motion, taking five soldiers with it.

I was amazed at how high I could jump. I still didn't know much about my body when it was transformed…I just knew it was way more bad-ass than my normal form.

Another loud call, not near as loud as the entity's and different, rang out, and I looked over mid-air around a building near-tall enough to be called a skyscraper as a fifteen-foot lankier version of the Escque stepped around it. There was a group of them—these newer ones were nothing like I'd ever seen, and from that day forward I had the slightest of phobias toward abnormally tall things. They were thin, and they moved in thrusts, their arms swinging exaggeratedly at their sides…not too differently from Ents in the Lord of the Rings. Only uglier. And slightly dead-looking.

I threw a ball of energy at the one in the front, falling back toward the ground and shooting off the round of shorter Escques with another attack, leaping upward off one of their heads to see if my attack had had any effect.

It hadn't.

Kicking off the side of the building that it was coming around and on to the ladder on the side, I climbed quickly until I was halfway to the top of the building, then used the glass windows on the side as a kick-off point, throwing myself at one of the taller of them…but this particular one wasn't fifteen feet tall. Maybe fifty. I landed on its shoulder, and immediately its arm lashed out toward me, swinging around in a cool, slightly delayed way because it was so large. I caught its hand, which was unfortunately roughly my size, and snapped its wrist backward. It didn't appear to feel any pain, though, and I was forced to press my hands against its neck and send an electric version of my attack blasting through its flesh.

I sprang off at the last minute, realizing I probably should have gotten it closer to a building or to the ground before killing it, and fell downward, biting my lip against an unwanted scream.

When I hit the ground, my ankles burned so badly that I cried out, thinking momentarily that they had been crushed, but I was able to dodge an attack from one of the devil-demon-like Escques and proved not to have broken my ankles. They still hurt, and my feet lagged behind a bit, slower than I intended, but I was still able to fight.

Then I heard the entity roar, and the ground shook as it slammed downward. I grinned. Hiei had killed it.

As I faintly caught sight of him flickering through the air at the taller Escque, I turned back to fight once again the onslaught of Escque. I gained a certain rhythm within minutes of killing them and it became automatic, and soon I realized their numbers were slimming and that I had stopped chanting.

Gazing upward to the sky, I noticed with a faint smile that the rift was sealed, but then a voice cut through the cries of the Escque and stopped me.

It was a child. A human child. Calling for help.

I sent a blast of energy into the soldiers and searched the crowd of them for the source of the voice, but found none. And then, when I looked upward, I realized that the windows of the buildings were lined with the faces of ghosts, just like back in New Jersey on my vacation, before my life was flipped around entirely.

Then I gathered what had happened to them, and I wondered with a sick feeling how long this war had been going on without my knowledge. I shuddered, gagging as I remembered the children and even dogs that had been in the apartment complex, and knew how many more casualties there were this time.

"_You bastards!_" I shouted, unable to stop myself, and I felt a hilt in my hands. Not caring about its origin, I slashed through the demons with a new motivation. The voice had been a ghost…I couldn't save it. But I could save the rest of the humans if I killed these creatures. I could prevent them from doing it again.

I lost count of the hours.

Me and Hiei killed the entirety of the demon population in the city, and I knelt down by a corpse to catch my breath.

"I'll leave it to Koenma to restore the humans," Hiei said, coming to stand next to me.

"'Restore'?" I whispered breathlessly, heaving.

"He cannot save them all, but he can bring back enough to not cause suspicion."

"Is that his only reasoning for saving them?" I growled, still gasping for much-needed breath.

"Yes." Hiei's voice was uncaring again. "He will leave the old and the sick dead…he can only bring back so many, so he must choose. The humans can blame the rest of the casualties of heat, or some other idiotic human concept."

I sighed, nodding. I couldn't understand how quickly I began to understand that certain humans could not be saved. It wasn't like me. Just like the anger wasn't like me.

"We have to go stop the rest."

"What did I tell you bef—"

"Enough. Be an optimist, just this once. We can at least kill off some of them," I said.

"Fine." Hiei didn't sound enthused, but he didn't seem to mind the idea either. "Can you sense which way the largest group headed?"

"Yeah. There's a few hundred to the south."

We continued fighting for a few more hours, switching from city-to-city, before finally we found ourselves in the middle of nowhere.

"Why would they come out here, Hiei? There aren't many humans in the country." Gazing about the rural setting, I tried to sense which way they'd gone.

"Number of humans does not matter to them. Just the fact that there are humans is enough for an Escque."

"Right. Let's go."

My spiritual sense led me to a wheat field. I saw the faintest of red cresting the horizon, signaling sunrise, and I pointed out past the wheat to a grassier field on the next hill, where a group of the soldiers slithered their way along. These looked like the one from my shower, which I'd only seen once before…they were carrying weapons.

"Be careful, ningen. These are quite like the demons, and not very close to the Escque, despite their appearance."

"Alright."

I set off at a run, and Hiei flickered from my view, reappearing on the hill. When I got there, the group had already gone over the hill. I saw their target, then: another town. There was a river before it, and their direction made me guess they were going for the bridge. Then I noticed that in the pack of them were a few demons, littered here-and-there, ahead of the Escque who lined the back.

I slashed at the nearest in the back, but he caught me off guard by whipping around faster than the demons we'd fought and blocking with his own sword. I shot him with energy, killing him, but I wondered then, finally, how I'd gotten the sword. I gathered after a moment's consideration that I had probably summoned it with my energy. After all, Chichiro had had an energy-summoned weapon, though hers was not a plain steel sword like mine.

I raised my arm and battled a second Escque, ripping my hands into third's throat as he attempted to attack me from the side. And just as I was about to smirk arrogantly, I felt his sword slide cleanly into the front right side of my stomach. I had failed to realize that even when I had his neck and he was dying that he could still use his arms…after all, I wasn't fighting a human.

Unaccustomed to such pain, I winced and was unable to make noise, feeling my eyes rolling backward. I didn't remember falling, but I was on the ground before I could open my eyes. When I did, I saw a demon raising his sword, and I shut them immediately.

…Not the sort of thing I wanted to see. I had kind of hoped to see Hiei and for all the demons to be demolished, but obviously not.

I heard the demon cry out, and I looked up to see a sword run through it and sticking through the center of its neck, and when Hiei withdrew his sword it fell backward.

Much better.

Hiei turned immediately to slash through another demon, breaking another's head off with his Fist of the Mortal Flame…I was barely able to watch, and pretty soon everything faded and my only consciousness was the pain on my stomach.

Without realizing it, I brought my hand to my wound, flinching as my palm covered it, but I brought my other hand to hold on to my first…maybe it was because I'd watched the Sixth Sense too many times, but I figured it was what I should do. It hurt to, but I kept my hands there, unsure of how long I'd be able to.

And then all was quiet, and I struggled to focus my gaze on Hiei, who crouched next to me. "Put pressure on it," he ordered, and brought his wrist to his mouth and tore off a section of his sleeve. "Damn it, put pressure on it!" he commanded again when I didn't do anything, and I attempted to press my hands closer to the wound but my body automatically recoiled at the pain. He then put his un-used hand over mine and pressed down, holding it there while he was tearing off the strip. I couldn't tell if he was angry, annoyed or worried (though I wouldn't have been able to fathom the third as truth), but Hiei said nothing after I felt his jagan enter my mind, if only briefly, and then he threaded the fabric behind my back and brought it around, tying it just-past the wound.

"It hurts," I was unable to stop myself from mumbling faintly, and I grimaced, feeling light-headed. A blind-flash came to my eyes, and everything was black. Just as I heard Hiei begin to say something, and felt his arm behind my shoulder blades, all reality slid away from my grasp.


	10. The Reason

**Authoress's Note: **Okay, this is the last chapter with the boring stuff. (Insert Sarcasm Here) Yay. (End Sarcasm.) Sorry for the lag, but any who actually made it this far into reading, you finally get the good stuff next chapter (Well, maybe not directly next. But within the next few.)

**Disclaimer:** Neither Hiei, nor Yu-Yu-Hakusho is mine.

**Claimer:** Chichiro is mine, Kaze is BritKit, Aria is FoxWitch. While not all the characters are not mine, all writing, storylines and concepts in this fanfiction (Save any YYH references) are.

* * *

When I opened my eyes I thought briefly that I was dreaming. I was soaring over my town, heading downward, and the wind whipped my hair backward. But in dreams, you cannot feel pain, and that is all that I felt. I then considered the prospect of being dead, but I was afforded no such luck, so I realized when I felt a jolt; looking down, I saw someone else's feet positioned on a thick branch on one of the trees outside my school, and then I gathered that I was being carried.

My entire body was numb. Not the normal numb, like when something had delayed pain, but like when your foot falls asleep. Only it was everywhere save my stomach, and there roared with a raw agony that I had never felt, not even on my shoulder. I closed my eyes, trying to will myself back into unconsciousness in hopes that the pain would recede, but I was not given that either. I noted without much caring that we had stopped moving.

"Are you awake?" I shouldn't have been surprised to hear Hiei's voice, but I was. I nodded weakly, hoping that my body had obeyed me, but with the numbness I couldn't tell if I had moved or not. I felt myself moving, and I wondered if Hiei had just shifted position, or if we were moving on again, but I felt no wind on my face and assumed the first. "I can't take you back to the humans yet. You have to be able to at least act normally."

The numbness was gradually fading, and my stomach sent out small waves of pain every once and a while to the rest of my body. I didn't respond, and wasn't sure if I had tried that I would have been able to.

"I can use my jagan to trick them for a few hours, maybe even the day, but you'll have to be back by tomorrow."

Again, I said nothing. _Just take me away from here_, I thought without cause, suddenly wondering what kept me attached to this place. _Take me away and never bring me back._

If he read my thoughts with his jagan, he didn't mention it. "We'll have to find some place to stay for you to heal."

_In a day?_ I couldn't help but wonder, but I supposed he had some sort of technique or medicine to help the process along.

"Can you think of anywhere?" When he received no response, he spoke again. "Can you speak yet?"

I willed myself to quit being so human, and mumbled faintly, "Yes." I still didn't have my eyes open. It felt like too hard a task at the moment, and I could feel myself slowly slipping back into unconsciousness. "Can't we just—" I trailed off as a wave of exhaustion snatched my words away, and I continued after a brief pause. "—just go to Makai?"

I didn't know if he was considering or ignoring me and thinking of another place, but I slid away into much-wanted sleep within seconds of speaking.

* * *

The first thing I noticed besides the pain was how much tighter the fabric around my wound felt. Tighter and thicker, spanning a larger distance around my torso. I assumed it meant bandages. I waited a few seconds, hoping again, stubbornly, to pass out, but nothing happened. Then I opened my eyes and my gaze was met by a dark sky. Dark and cruel, and nothing like anything I'd seen in the mortal world. True, by lighting it looked much like a cloudy day, or like it was raining, but there was something in the chill of the air and the unforgiving sense that I got from the twisted, malformed clouds that made me immediately discard the idea of the human world.

"Hiei…?" I wasn't sure if anyone would have been able to hear me, because I could barely hear myself, but I heard a shift next to me. Apparently Hiei had quite good hearing.

"You've been out a while. How do you feel?"

I just groaned in reply. I figured it was a good enough answer.

"At least your conscious," he muttered, and when he stood I was able to see him. There was a stiffness in my neck that had prevented me from looking around myself, which hinted that I had been in that position a while.

I was suddenly overcome with despair when I thought about my wound. If I couldn't handle something like that, how long would I be able to keep this up? How could I 'save the world' and play hero if I couldn't handle a stomach wound? What if I was injured worse? Would I die, like a human, easily and without much effort? "What are we fighting for?" I mumbled softly, and I was surprised myself at how lost my voice sounded. I could no longer see Hiei, as my eyes slid into black when my sight failed again, but I could feel him look over at me. "It _is_ a lost cause."

"Because we choose to," Hiei said without much pause after my words. "We fight for life, even though we know it's useless."

Amazed by how quickly I had lost hope, I closed my eyes and debated on asking where we were. It was obvious we were in Makai, somewhere, but I was naturally curious and just had to figure out whether or not it was worth the pain of taking in enough breath to speak.

Before my mild inner feud could be settled, my stomach burned randomly, and with the sudden onslaught of pain, my awareness faded again.

We were moving again when I was brought back into reality. It felt as though I had just closed my eyes, but something told me many hours had passed. "I don't want to be brought down so easily," I whispered lightly. I could feel Hiei's arms underneath my knees and behind my shoulder blades, and every few seconds I felt the slightest of jerks as he hit down on the nearest tree branch and sprang to the next. We weren't in a place with many trees, I could tell, because of how far apart his landings were. He was only half-running, now, and half leaping. "Teach me. Show me how to fight."

He said nothing. I wondered if it was even worth it to have asked, but I was too tired to care.

I stayed awake for a longer period of time that I would have assumed possible for me then, and I was able to watch as the land flew by. We were going fast enough, in high enough places, that if I had not been injured and out-of-it, I probably would have submitted to my phobia of heights and been scared, but then I was blown away by how calm and quiet the world was. It was no place I recognized, and I wondered if we were back in the human world yet.

Hours passed, but I was barely aware of the time. My internal clock just told me how much time had gone by—it was freakily accurate sometimes. I closed my eyes within three hours, but didn't sleep. I just enjoyed the feeling of being in Hiei's arms, and tried to keep my mind away from the pain. I relished pain, normally, but there was too much of it this time. And it wasn't superficial like the cuts I enjoyed—it was throbbing and it felt as though my torso was swelling around a sword blade still lodged in my stomach.

For a moment, I considered the concept of Hiei caring about me…if he hadn't, would he be going to such lengths to make sure my parents didn't find out, and carrying me home? That day was one of the only instances in those few first months when Hiei was with me that I slipped into thinking, yes, he does. But it only lasted minutes. I seemed insistent on torturing myself into believing he didn't care about me back then.

A few more hours passed, but I didn't sleep or open my eyes. My breathing slowed and I almost slept a few times, but then my body required me to yawn or sigh, and it made me move my stomach enough to inflict more pain, and it woke me again.

And then we began to slow, and I heard Hiei's feet land on something that sounded much different than a tree branch, and I opened my eyes the tiniest to look into my bedroom, and realized Hiei had landed outside my window. He narrowly got both of us inside the window, but he managed without trouble, and I closed my eyes again and savored the feeling of my soft mattress behind me.

I slid out of consciousness only moments after.

* * *

I was somehow able to trick my parents into thinking I was sick, and I was able to stay in my bed without moving for a few days. In that time, I conditioned myself to the pain by making it greater once and a while, just to be thankful that when it faded that it was lesser than before. I knew that if I remained unmoving for more than a week, they would take me to the doctor. And sword wounds were just slightly difficult to cover up.

On the fifth day of resting, I woke without immediately noticing the pain. After moving to sit up, my abdomen roared in pain, but I barely noted it. It wasn't actually 'day' out, it was nighttime. I rubbed my temples as my typical headache complained, and I looked out to see Hiei sitting on my tree branch, his eyes closed. I yawned, stretching, using my stomach as little as possible when doing so. I was tired from over-sleeping, and I knew if I didn't get up and do something I would go out of my mind with boredom and exhaustion.

I looked back over at Hiei, wondering if I should wake him or not, but his eyes were open and he was looking back at me. "Feeling better?"

"Yeah." I looked over at the clock—it was only just past seven, which meant unless Hiei could trick my human parents into not checking up on me, I couldn't leave.

"Already done," he said immediately after the thought crossed my mind. "Are you up to fighting?" I must have winced at the idea, because he followed up immediately with, "It was a question, not a 'let's do it now'."

"I think I'll pass for a few days. If I can."

"Hn." He looked out at my street. "That just means I'll have to maintain a constant mind link with you."

"Why?"

"The Escque know you're injured." I blinked, wondering how they knew, thinking Hiei had probably killed all those who would have seen it, but I didn't interrupt him to find out. "If they know that I'm not here, they'll come after you more than they would usually. So I have to know if you're in danger."

As with a few nights previous, I wondered if Hiei would say that if he didn't care, but I smothered the thought immediately, knowing Hiei could more easily get into my thoughts when I was weakened. "I can take care of myself."

"Hn. Like you took care of yourself last week?" His words embarrassed me for some reason, but he left no pause for me to defend myself. "I don't think so. Just keep your mind open and be alert."

I would have said 'Sure, right', or something to the effect, but he was gone before I could open my mouth and reply.

Sighing, I debated on what to do. I didn't want the humans to fawn over me and tell me how glad they were that I was feeling better, only to stick a thermometer in my ear (Yes, I did write that correctly. I'm not sure I like ear thermometers. They're uncomfortable.).

I yawned, and decided I should have gone with Hiei. It would be better than staying here. Hoping his mind link had told him I wanted to go without me having to say it, I looked over at the window. No Hiei. Damn.

I stretched again, and finally submitted to the fact that I was stuck in my house, and meditated. I realize now that it was unintelligent to do that…after all, in mediation I was as unobservant as when I slept. But something of my transformation had been retained, and I snapped out of meditation at the first sign of sensing something different. Something sinister. Was that the right word? Maybe not, but it was the closest I could find.

_Hiei_, I started, but he interrupted me in the mind link.

_I know, I'm already coming back._

I felt like I should relax, but I was still stiff and nervous. This felt different than the Escque, demon or not. Stronger.

I slipped off my bed, pulling on a pair of pajama pants to go with my huge night shirt, and I opened the door, sliding into the hallway as silently as I could. I saw a faint light from inside my parents bedroom, and I sensed mom in the room, reading. Dad was off in New Jersey as usual, and my brother was at his girlfriend's house.

Nothing awry with my family. They were fine.

I went to the bathroom, looking out the back window, then immediately recoiled and plastered myself against the wall, out of sight of the window.

There was something that was definitely not Hiei and not an Escque on my roof. It wasn't a demon or entity, either. What it was couldn't be explained by me, still relatively clueless of the magical world, but I felt like retching at the sight of it.

It was just a huge, hunched over shape. It had no true form, but I could tell what was what anyway, though as soon as I was against the wall my sight disappeared. It happened often now, and I guessed I should let Hiei try out his jagan-trick again. But he wasn't here.

I have to say, not seeing it was worse than seeing it. I could sense its aura better without physical sight, and it wasn't the most nicest energy I'd ever felt. It was angry and cruel, but somehow inviting. Inviting in a way I knew would be foolish to listen to, but I was drawn like a moth to a flame. I closed my eyes, despite the fact it had absolutely no difference to when they were open, and I held my breath, counting to three and opening my eyes. Faint sight had returned to them. _As I thought. The blind flashes don't last if I concentrate and rest my eyes._

I ignored whatever was outside my window. The less attention I paid it, the less fear I had. And, as Hiei had told me before, I should never let emotions take hold of me. I breathed out slowly, then turned back to my bedroom.

It wouldn't come inside. Something told me it couldn't.

Then there was a sound outside my window. "Hiei?"

"Hn. Let me in."

I looked over at him from my position leaning against the door. "Why? You never needed my help before."

"That thing outside put a barrier around your home. I need your 'approval' to enter."

"My app…okay." It crossed my mind that Hiei usually knew the names of what we fought, in weird languages, but I dismissed it. "Did you kill it?"

"Of course I did."

"How come I didn't sense it?"

"Hn. It must be blocking your perception as well."

"Alright." I walked over to the window, bending down and letting the screen open. "Why do you need to come in?"

"I need to make sure it was the only one."

"Insulting my spiritual sense? It may be able to 'block my perception' from the outside, but not in my own house."

"Hn. Don't get angry, I'm just telling the truth."

The comment seemed totally un-Hiei, but I didn't mention it. "Well? Come in then. What are you waiting for?"

I furrowed my brow as he began to smirk, and then I heard his voice call, "_Damn it, ningen!_" from a far, not from his own mouth.

I cocked my head to the side, opening my mouth to say his name, but suddenly he threw me inside by my neck, pinning be to the wall and constricting his hand. _I knew it_, I thought faintly, angrily, my vision already clouding back into another blind flash as I lost my concentration. He pressed his hand to my sword wound and began to send energy through it, I suppose because it was my weakest, least guarded spot. _I knew this was too good to be true._

"Still have that little faith in me?" I heard his voice growl, but it sounded far away. I guessed my senses were clouding, too, but suddenly, as I focused just slightly, he grimaced, falling backward.

…To reveal another Hiei behind him, holding a bloodied sword. I was pretty confused by this point, but then the Hiei whom this newer Hiei (Confusing you yet? I'm confusing myself.) had stabbed through began to get darker, not only on his skin, but everywhere, until he was just a shadow, and then there was nothing left.

I slid down the wall and coughed, looking up at Hiei with mistrust in my eyes. I had no clue what had just happened, but when someone pins you against a wall you don't exactly trust them.

"I would have thought you'd be able to tell the difference."

I just glared at him. Even if I had been able to try and reply (I was too angry), I probably wouldn't have been able to, with my momentarily partially crushed windpipe.

"Are you alright?"

Now I was past confused. _First pin me against a wall, then kill…yourself, then ask me if I'm okay? Am I on something I don't remember taking?_

He knelt down to look at my stomach, reaching his hand out, I'm assuming, to check if it was bleeding, but I smacked his hand away. Then I tried to speak, to ask him what the fuck he was thinking, but it only made my throat constrict like his hand was still there, and I bent over to have another coughing fit, grimacing through it as it pressed my wound together. If it hadn't bled before, it was now.

Hiei leaned back at my hand lashing out, not looking surprised, but mildly annoyed. He stood, looking down at me with his hands in his pockets. "Haven't you gotten it through your thick skull yet? That wasn't me."

"Sorry," I snarled as my coughing ceased, "but my skull's thicker than you know."

Hiei sighed, rolling his eyes before glaring back at me distastefully. "Don't be an imbecile. The Manawyn from outside needed your permission to enter your house. After all, it was a creature from the devil. And you gave it what it needed to get in and kill you. So it tried, but I got here in time to stop it." He threw his head to the side, to accent his feeling. "And this is how you thank me. Typical."

I wasn't sure what to believe, but at the moment my anger was simmering down. Still, that same anger was telling me to trust the physical evidence…such as the handprints around my throat. I closed my eyes and let my head fall limp, not responding.

I heard Hiei 'Hn', and then I sensed him go outside, and his energy trail led away. Either he was being cautious, he was annoyed with me for not believing him, or he was finishing the fight.

I drew in a breath and let it out slowly, like before in the bathroom, and realized I should trust Hiei. And should have trusted him before. I should have been surprised, not thinking that I should have expected it. _What's wrong with me?_

I reached my hand up to run through my hair and sighed again. I fell asleep, or shall I say passed out, against the wall, my hand across my stomach, one leg stretched out and the other bent close to my body in a v-shape.

* * *

I woke immediately when Hiei came back. I don't know if I was on edge, still suspicious toward him, or if my awareness was just great enough now that a large energy signal like his would immediately wake me every time, but whatever the cause I woke.

"Are you still pissy about the Manawyn's copy of me?"

Ignoring the question, I responded with one of my own. "What the hell is a Manawyn? You keep calling that thing that, acting like I'd know the name."

"Hn. It's a shapeshifter."

"That thing was a shapeshifter?"

"…You can't possibly be asking me that."

"…Oh. Right. Copy of you. Shapeshifter. Got it." My mind seemed to have slowed since the Escque had wounded me. Today more so than usual.

"And sometimes I think your intelligence is finally improving. Shows me for ever thinking such an absurd idea.'

"Whatever. Hiei, can we go kill something? Please? I know you were probably doing just that, but I really need to right now."

"You know, for pussy-footing around killing for so long, you sure did get used to it fast."

"Oh, shut it, Jaganshi," I stunned myself by saying. My surprise at my own words immediately made me forget what I had planned on saying.

"Jaganshi," Hiei quoted, completely unaffected by my harsh words. "Is that a new nickname or something?"

"…I guess. Listen, can we go or not?"

"Fine. I'd advise against it, but I can see you've already set your mind to it, and you're almost as stubborn as I am."

"Wow," I replied sarcastically, quirking a brow, "actually comparing me to yourself?"

"Hn. Don't get excited." I finally made contact with his crimson eyes, which I had been avoiding for fear that it would make me accuse him again. It was like there was a completely different side of me when I was angry—I was still conscious and in control, but my out bursts had a complete mind of their own. "It will be a rare occasion when I do compare myself to you." He didn't move from his spot on the tree like usual. "Let's go. I'm sure there are a few rogue Escque who got away."

Suddenly my mind sparked an idea. "Wait. What about what I asked you before?"

Before letting me define what I meant, Hiei sighed and said, "Let me guess. The training?"

"Well? Will you?"

"I'll consider it. But I won't train you when you're still this weak."

"Oh, but you'll let me go out and almost kill myself," I mumbled, and continued sarcastically. "That makes sense."

"Hn. If you had any substance in that thing you call a mind, you'd realize it does. What I let you do, and what I do _to_ you are completely different things. I don't care enough to stop you, but the training could pose an interesting concept."

His 'I don't care enough to stop you' reminded me to stop thinking that he cared about me yet again, but I hadn't been doing much of that lately anyway. Not after the Manawyn 'incident'. I didn't reply for a moment, then finally I said, "Come on. We've yet to do any of that handy killing I mentioned."

"Hn."

Hiei waited for me on a different branch, maybe because I was injured and he thought he should baby-sit. Just as I stepped out onto his normal tree limb, I heard the phone ring downstairs.

"What are you waiting for, ningen? It's just than human contraption."

"Yeah, but it could be for me."

"…Do you care?"

"I wouldn't usually, but I think it is. I think it's Kaze."

"What you can sense who phone calls are from now?" Hiei muttered without much enthusiasm or belief.

"Oh, be quiet. I just have a feeling."

"Not like your human 'parents' will think you would take a phone call anyway. I know you didn't think of that, O Brilliant-Minded One."

I sighed. "No, I hadn't." Then, to piss him off about being indifferent toward the insult, I grinned easily at him. "Thanks for the suggestion, I'll go to the stairs to listen and make sure I get the call."

I heard him growl lightly behind me, and I opened the door, standing against the top post railing of the stairs to listen as my mother answered the phone. "Hello? Oh, hi, Joanna. Sorry, Rachel's been sick. She's sleeping. Can I have her call you back?"

"Hey, Mom?" I called into the hallway, feigning a half-sick voice. "Who is it?"

"Joanna—are you up to taking the call?"

"I guess." Still acting sick, I slid into my bedroom quickly and laid down, so it seemed I had never left my bed. Hiei was nowhere to be seen; I could sense him, but he wasn't in the tree or the room. Mom walked in just as I finished covering myself, and she held the phone out to me.

I answered and complained to Kaze for a few moments about a virus that I didn't actually have, then she told me she wanted to invite me to a lake party at one of her Dad's friend's houses. I agreed I wanted to go, but that I had to ask my parents. After hanging up, I looked out the window. Hiei was still missing from the tree, but I sensed him closer than the tree. Then I got the idea of him being on the roof, and I walked over to the window, leaning on to the large trunk in front of it. "Hiei?" I hissed in a whispering voice, not wanting my mom to hear me now that she was probably listening thanks to her human curiosity.

_Hn_, came his voice telepathically. _I'm here._

_Didn't you say something a really long time ago about how the Escque prefer to travel through water, or something like that?_

_A while ago, yes. I'm amazed you remember, with how slow you normally are._

_Quit the insulting for just this one conversation, okay?_ I walked back to my bed to continue the conversation, since it was a mind chat rather than one of voice, and I didn't need to be at the window. _Is it safe to go near a lake?_

_Probably not. But you shouldn't let these pitiful creatures rule your life. Go anyway. I'll just follow, and if needed you can transform. It wouldn't be any different—we'd just have to lure the Escque away from the humans to fight. If_, he added, almost like an after-thought, _you think you're up to it with your wound._

_Don't act like you care if I'm hurt_, I responded. I could only assume it was because of the fact that it wasn't out loud that I so openly admitted that I didn't think he cared. _It isn't natural, coming from you. I can suck it up._

Hiei didn't reply. I guessed because he was surprised at what I had said first. I ignored the fact, and laid down. _Hey…Hiei?_ It had been a few minutes since I last spoke, and I could sense him on the roof now that I was actually concentrating on where he was.

_What?_ He sounded annoyed, like I had woken him or something.

…_When will you start training me?_ I said it mainly to tease him, and I heard the soft sound of him chuckling on the roof, and I grinned. It made me happy to hear him laugh.

_I haven't even said yes, yet, ningen. Don't start asking me 'where's and 'when's already._

_Yet_, I quoted. _And I didn't ask 'where' yet. You got me on that one ahead of time._ I knew he was still amused, but his chuckling had ceased within seconds and the humor was gone from his voice when he responded.

_Fine. I will train you, but only so you aren't so lagging when we fight. You need to work on your skills._

I couldn't help but smile. _Yeah, I know I'm not the best fighter ever._ I was going to say something about how I wasn't the one who always ranted off about how teams and anything to the effect were for fools, but I realized he wasn't speaking on 'team' terms, he just simply needed someone to fight with and I was his only possible choice. I sighed lightly.

_Hn.

* * *

_

Of course the party was okay with my parents. Within two days I was in the car and driving there with Kaze. Her brother was driving—it was his first time driving a long distance, and I was nervous the first few miles, but after about twenty minutes I had relaxed.

About forty-five minutes into the drive, I looked out to watch Hiei running through the tree branches alongside the car. As we slowed at a tollbooth, he turned to look back at me, sensing me staring. I felt like I should look away, and I know a month before I would have just out of embarrassment, but I held his gaze. There was something in his eyes that I was surprised I could see from that distance, something that warned me. I lifted my head off of its place propped on my hand. _Hiei?_ The car jerked and reminded me where I was, and I when I started at its moving, I realized how randomly jumpy I had become.

_What?_

_Is there…what…_ I paused, trying to form a sentence that would make sense. _Is there something wrong?_

_Hn. What makes you ask something like that?_

_You just…look like…I don't know, like you know something I don't._

_Well, that isn't anything new. Your feeble brain contains not even a tenth of what I know._

I restrained myself from snickering at the comment, realizing what I had set myself up for. But I knew his comment was just a façade. _Ha hah, very funny, jerk. But really. I was being serious._

_Hn. So was I._

I twitched lightly. _Hey. Quit it for a second, will you? Take me seriously just this one moment and answer my question._

_I'm fine. Stop persisting the opposite._

_I don't believe you_, I thought, but didn't send the comment to him.

We arrived at the party not too much later than that. It consisted of me and Kaze going out on a paddle boat (Not for long, for back then I still had my deep-water fear that I outgrew within the next year.), eating a lot of food, me finding out that I like potato salad for the first time, and then finally Kaze trying to talk me into going out on a motor boat. Had I known then how amazingly fun boating was and that I would become obsessed with and want to go boating whenever possible two years after I would have gone. But I didn't, and stayed behind on the dock even after Kaze bugged me for about ten minutes.

I was alone on the dock for a long while, and I followed the motorboat with my eyes. It began to get dark out. I looked up and glanced around as I sensed Hiei's energy randomly closer to me, and I finally locked eyes with him as I noticed him on top of the boat house that had held the motorboat currently carrying Kaze. "Hey. Something up?"

"Demons. Across the lake, a few miles off. A lot of them. I was planning on not asking you to aid in my fighting until you had healed more, but this is urgent."

I blinked. "'Urgent'? Why? How many are there?"

"Could be over a thousand. I guess we pissed them off by winning too many times in a row."

My eyes widened. "Over a thousand?" His expression was only mildly disturbed…he was still calm. Normally I'd have one of my random 'How the _hell_ are you so damned calm?' outbursts, but there was an admiration I had for him that killed my anger and made me want to be able to face things with as much ease as he. "Alright. Let's go."

Then Kaze's mom came onto the dock. I knew she had come to keep me company…I'd feel bad leaving her.

_We don't have time for your sympathy toward humans,_ Hiei growled telepathically. He was gone from the top of the boathouse, but I could still sense him close. _If you'd like, I could deceive her into thinking you're still here, but we have to go fight. Now._

_Alright._ I smiled up at her, but then her eyes took on a strange blankness and I knew Hiei was distracting her mind momentarily. There was no one else around, so I saw no need to not speak out loud. "Hiei, where did you say they are they?"

"Across the lakes, a few miles off."

"Across the lakes…? With an 's'?"

"Yes. You are on the Finger Lakes, you do realize?"

I stared blankly at him. "You can't expect me to get there by myself…nothing's as fast as you."

He grinned arrogantly, then considered.

"What do you suppose we do?" I asked, and he just looked at me.

"I guess I'm going to have to carry you."

I knew he'd done it before, when I was injured, but I felt my cheeks burn like a coal anyway, embarrassed at the thought, and he continued to gaze at me incredulously. "What, you can't even handle _that_?"

"Of course I can!" I blurted out.

He shrugged, and literally swept me off my feet before I was ready, carrying me bridal style. As soon as he actually leapt off, I relaxed immediately, and I'd never felt safer.

I cuddled onto his chest without realizing it, until he was smirking at me. "You sure got comfortable fast."

I blushed furiously and looked down, before turning my head to look over where we were going. A huge gust of wind blew my hair back and stung my eyes, but as we flew downward (By this point we were already past the lake I'd been at) I felt magnificent for no reason at all.

He kicked off the shore, and I grinned at a boat in the center. "Use that to jump off," I told him.

He looked at me as if I were insane, then smirked. "You're nuts."

"Well you aren't disagreeing," I replied with a matching smirk. "So I'd say you're considering, if not planning on it."

He didn't loose his grin, and he fell back lightly so that his jump would be shorter, and he landed on the edge of the sailboat. The man on board choked briefly on what he was drinking, and I just waved with a huge smile on my face, and laughed as Hiei leapt off again, leaving behind the human, looking completely dumbfounded.

It was the only point of amusement I had the rest of that day. Or for a long while after that.

This would be the last fight I fought still innocent to the world. True, I'd seen horrors already, but nothing could have prepared me for what was to come in the next months.

After all, this was the last fight before I started training.


	11. Training

**Disclaimer:** Neither Hiei, nor Yu-Yu-Hakusho is mine.

**Claimer:** Chichiro is mine, Kaze is BritKit, Aria is FoxWitch. While not all the characters are not mine, all writing, storylines and concepts in this fanfiction (Save any YYH references) are.

* * *

The fight with the demon Escque didn't last. I was hoping for a good old-fashioned long-ass fight, but I wasn't given my wish. Kurama and the others had apparently closed another major rift from within Makai, and the demons retreated to aid their allies.

Hiei took me back to the dock, and I took up a conversation I was fairly clueless on between my non-existent self and Kaze's mom.

The party ended quickly after, and I fell asleep in the car with Kaze leaned over and asleep on my legs, which were resting on the seat of the car.

When I woke to walk back into my house after the car pulled into my driveway, I felt Hiei flicker ahead of me to his normal tree, and I thought briefly of how funny it was that he didn't care about me, but he was sticking around every night and protecting me nonetheless. I snickered lightly, blaming my humor toward the concept on my mild exhaustion.

I collapsed onto my bed and enjoyed the fluffiness of my pillows, looking out my window, not yet ready to sleep. "When do we start training? As you can see, I'm in perfect condition to fight, so training shouldn't be any different."

"Hn. You do realize I will expect you to spar me eventually, if not soon? I assure you, I will be much more difficult than you choose to believe despite your high views of me. And those demons, even a thousand against you only, have nothing against my power."

"Spar…you?" I stared at Hiei. I figured I'd bring up the point of the fact that he'd kill me with a single punch, with how much stronger he was, when we started training. It would be useless to bring it up now. "But you didn't answer my question, anyway."

"I guess we'll start tomorrow, if you're so insistent on being capable of fighting."

I grinned hugely, feeling like my chest was swelling. I hadn't been so excited for something in a long time…and I couldn't even figure out why I was anticipating it so positively. "Great."

Hiei sighed, and I heard him mumble, "You tell them you'll train them and they act like you're a God. This is why I wonder why I care about this world."

I rolled over to face away from him, getting comfortable and closing my eyes. I wondered where we'd train, if he'd wake me for it early in the morning like with fighting, and how we'd hide it from my parents along with everything else. My mind rang with a thousand questions that all lead back to the fact that I was seriously looking forward to training.

If only I'd known what that would bring…that this next year would haunt me like a cruel ghost, bent on giving me hell.

'_If only, if only', the woodpecker sighed…_

I woke before Hiei had apparently intended, as it wasn't his doing. It was a dream's fault, but one that quickly slid from my memory. But I had woken with shaking legs, cold sweat all over my body and beaded on my shoulders and face, and my heart slamming against the inside of my ribcage like it was trying to win something, and that made me think it was probably better that I couldn't conjure the image of the dream back.

"Well, I was going to wait an hour or two more, but I suppose since you're awake we should start now."

I looked over at Hiei and nodded. "Alright." I stood and sprang down onto the ground from the tree outside my room, my ankles flaring up as my heels sent them a complaint, but I didn't flinch or act like I noticed. It was just small pain…it meant nothing and should be ignored. I realized with a smirk that less than two weeks ago I probably would have complained about it for a few minutes before finally getting a grip and stopping.

I leapt over the fence into my backyard, finding the grass wet and the trees rustling lightly to greet me. I was already transformed when I woke, but it didn't seem odd to me for that to've happened.

"What first, O Great Teacher?" I asked sarcastically, but I didn't have any reason to be an angry-sarcastic this morning, and I had a grin plastered on my face.

"Quit grinning, for starters," he mumbled at me. His voice was soft, but from being tired or uncomfortable I didn't know. "As you say with me, it isn't like you."

I lost the grin without comment and shrugged. "Really, what first?"

"Sparring, I guess."

"Sparring? Already?"

"If you want me to train you, I'd suggest you shut up and listen."

I twitched, but remained composure and imagined what would happen if I sparred Hiei. the outcome wasn't pretty, at least not for me. "Uhm. You'd kick my ass."

"…You're right. Maybe we should just start with demons."

"I've already fought demons," I complained.

"Quiet, fool. I meant higher-level demons. I'll show you how to kick _their_ asses."

I grinned. "Sounds good to me." I looked out at my road briefly before looking back at Hiei. "So…you mean now?"

"Of course not. I'm not going to bring you into the hands of higher-class demons without you even knowing decent fighting skills."

I growled. "I'm decent and you know it. I'm not a star-fighter, no, but I can kill those Escque without a problem." I paused. "Well…except that one time—"

Hiei didn't seem to have patience for me that morning, and snapped, "Well, you're decent if you're speaking on terms of killing walking dead bodies, yes, but they don't really pose much of a challenge. Now pay attention, I won't repeat anything you decide your feeble brain can't catch."

I ignored the insult as best I could and waited for him to speak.

Without me even seeing him move, he was suddenly in a stance that looked mildly familiar from my karate classes. "Think you can follow a kata with your eyes?" he asked. I could tell by his voice he was guessing I couldn't, but planned on doing it anyway. Then his body moved in a flurry of movements, and I only caught a few of the moves. He stopped in a few seconds time—when you go that fast, a kata takes no time at all. "Now copy that. Exactly."

"…You can't really expect me to—"

"Do it. As much as you could catch and remember."

I blinked. "What, you mean a few jabs, a stance change and a kick?"

He just stared at me flatly and didn't respond, which I took as a yes. My memory when I was transformed was more acute and photographic, and what moves I had seen I was able to recall. I went through them slow enough not to make a mistake, but fast enough that I didn't feel completely and utterly inferior. I counted four stance changes, six offense moves and only two defense, of what I had retained in my memory.

"Is that all you saw?" he sighed when I was finished.

"…Yes."

"Well, your eyes are better than I'd first assumed, I admit, but that was still a pitiful attempt."

"Which is why you're training me," I snapped. "So I can get better. You can't expect me to be a pro as soon as—"

"Stop talking, ningen. It makes you seem stupider."

I realized he didn't really think any of the insults he was spitting at me then—he was just trying to piss me off and get angry like he had told me not to before to test me. So I kept a straight face and shut my mouth obediently.

Then Hiei held up a pair of long chains. They were thin, but there was a red aura above them, coating them in demon energy, which told me they were stronger than any thick human chain ever could be. I immediately stiffened when he spoke next, still mildly suspicious because of the Manawyn. "Put these on your hands, as tight as you can possibly tie them, around your knuckles and the bases of your fingers."

"…Can I ask why?"

"Just do it. And if you don't tie them tight enough that you can no longer feel the tips of your fingers, I guarantee you'll wish you had when I do it for you."

I blinked, wary, then caught them as he tossed them over to me. I put one in my mouth, wondering with a slightly-sick feeling if I even wanted to know where they'd been, and began to loop it around my hand. My fingers began to turn a redder color the farther across my knuckles the chains got, and I gritted my teeth against any other facial expression that my body told me to make to illustrate the pain.

"If you still can feel the pain, they aren't tight enough."

I yanked on it harder, until I felt like my knuckles were breaking, and then I started down toward my fingers, stopping right at the joints.

Hiei smirked. "Good. Now the other."

"But if I can't feel my hand, how can I try and put the other on?"

"Concentrate on the pain of what you feel at the end of the chain, and use it to pull the other chain on."

I wasn't sure about the way he had worded it, but I thought I understood anyway, and I concentrated on the angrily-red skin at the base of the chain on my right hand as I tied the other on my left hand. And sure enough, as Hiei had probably planned, the chain of my left hand were tighter, and my fingers buzzed without feeling, but there was a certain loud pain in them anyway. Not something I'm great at explaining.

I looked over at Hiei, holding back any clue-giving facial expression. "Alright, got that, now what?"

"Pay attention. Closer this time." I narrowed my eyes slightly and focused completely on what Hiei was doing, mostly to keep my mind off the queer, annoying, uncomfortable feeling on my hands, as he repeated the kata.

When he was done, I had seen every move but the first four.

"You said you weren't going to repeat anything, right?"

"Hn."

"Why'd you repeat that?"

"Because I had to for you to learn anything. That is what this training is about."

"…Than can you do it again?"

"No. I'll only re-do something when I have to. For now, you're completely fine without me repeating the kata. Now try again."

"The kata? You mean do it?"

"What else would I mean by 'try again'?"

I growled, but re-did it. I knew I was better the second time, after all, I actually remembered all but those initial four this time.

"Better. But you're still as slow as ever."

I made a sound not so different from 'rrg', but Hiei didn't seem to note or care about the fact. He did the kata a third time, faster than the others, but I could still understand the moves, and when he finished I had the entire thing memorized.

And then I cried out in pain as the chains on my hands constricted and strangled my fingers and knuckles into a dark agonizing pain. The calm red demon energy that had surrounded them before was now stronger and raging, which meant Hiei had done it. "What the hell?"

"Hn. I warned you before about not wanting me to do it for you," he growled. "That energy you see is what I transferred into normal, useless chains. I can make them as tight or loose as I please…If I wanted, I could snap all your fingers off now."

"Is that a threat?" I growled, but at my words he tightened his held-out fist and with the movement the chains constricted as well. I yelped again.

"No, I'm just pointing out the possibilities."

"Seems more like you're carrying them out," I whispered hoarsely, glaring at Hiei. This isn't what I'd meant by 'training', but because I was still angry with myself for not fully trusting him again yet, I decided to then. He would make some sort of point with this eventually…Hopefully.

"Hn. I wouldn't waste my time removing your limbs by joints, or with chains. I'd just cut off your entire arm with a sword. But that is not my intention."

I didn't think anyone would be able to clench their hand tighter than Hiei had his, but his fingers curled inward more and I cried out a third time, my legs feeling weak, and I saw small droplets of blood falling from my hands. "What the hell are you doing? Are you taking this somewhere—" I flinched as the chains got tighter still and paused briefly before recovering my voice. "—or are you just enjoying torturing me?"

"Actually, I'd rather have these chains near-breaking your fingers, but I have to do it in small increments to make sure I don't actually break them."

I growled. "That didn't really answer the question."

"Hn. Patience, ningen, when I finish with this you'll see."

Whatever excitement I had toward training was evaporated, but I wasn't really thinking of the coming mornings when I'd have to repeat this or something worse—I was just concentrating on not breaking down and crying. Sure he wasn't wounding me anywhere major, but my fingers still had nerves and I would have guaranteed he'd snapped them all if not for the severe agony shooting up my arm with each tightening of the chains.

I had no way to take them off, as I would have done so with my hands and both were currently bound, but that didn't mean I didn't want to take them off and go murder Hiei. I tried to keep myself calm and motivated, to no avail, and my anger rose.

Then I heard a crack and I was only able to whimper as I felt one of my fingers removed from its socket. Nothing broken, no, but it still hurt like a bitch. And then the pain stopped increasing, but that wasn't much condolence to me, as it was still at a roaring level indifferently.

I brought my hand to my mouth and got a hold on the dislocated finger with my teeth, then yanked upward quickly, as it would have been worse had I done it slower. I gritted my teeth against a verbal outburst, but none came. There was another audible _crack_ as my finger replaced itself. I squeaked a feeble protest. All my senses were focused on the pain.

"Now try again," he told me. "Do the kata with the chains on."

I winced and looked over at him disbelievingly, but my voice seemed to have failed me and I wasn't about to try and use it just to ask him how long ago he'd lost his mind.

"Well? What are you waiting for? Don't be so weak, ningen."

"I'd like to see you try this," I snarled back at him, not caring if he already had or not. I just wanted him to feel the pain on my hands as well. I hated when people called me weak without true justification. Granted it didn't happen often, but it would be an on-going insult from Hiei. Then, I believed my anger was just, and that the pain was a relevant cause to direct that anger at Hiei. After all, the pain was his fault.

"Suck it up."

I winced and glared up at him. "What are you, Genkai?"

"Hn. Don't insult me. Just do it."

I growled, my anger toward him making me clench my hands tighter. I gave another feeble squeak, then, annoyed with how pitiful I sounded and not wanting to show weakness in front of him, I tightened my hands purposefully, growling, and got into the stance he'd shown me.

Halfway through I could have sworn my fingers would break, but no such think happened. I couldn't help but think of Yusuke's spirit cuffs. Sure, these chains weren't heavy, and they actually hurt, but I was still drawn into referencing to the series.

"Don't get side-tracked," he muttered at me.

"I won't, if you'd shut up," I snapped back. No doubt without these chains I wouldn't be irritable toward him despite how pissed off he was making me. But I didn't really care.

I slid my leg to the side and threw a jab, and I emptied my mind of everything. All around me blanked out but the pain on my hands, and, simply spontaneously, I focused in on it, clenching my hands tighter and tighter, until I grimaced in pain. But I didn't cry out. I barely thought about my techniques; they came automatically.

After I'd finished, I straightened, trying to loosen my hands, but my fingers were numb and wouldn't obey me. _I probably severed the nerves or something_, I thought in my mind with mild annoyance, looking down at them; they were angry and red looking, and blood ran down my wrist, though with my fingers so tightly woven into each other I couldn't see what was bleeding.

I sighed, and looked over at Hiei. I would have asked "better?" if he hadn't been smirking at me. But he was. I blinked, then narrowed my eyes. "Is something funny to you about this?" I growled.

"No. But if you had been able to see your movements, your speed was far more satisfactory than the last time."

I blinked, my facial features relaxing. "Really?"

"Hn. Don't get so excited, your techniques are still inferior."

"Say what!" Despite our minor argument, I could tell Hiei was pleased with how I was progressing and that, in turn, made me pleased with myself.

I was barely able to open the door; my hands were still clenched and unable to move, and I didn't quite feel like asking Hiei for help. Not to say I wouldn't enjoy him doing it, because I definitely would have, but somehow that seemed degrading to me; it seemed I was regaining my subtle arrogance that I had lost.

Inside and upstairs, I looked down at my hands, sighing. It was a fairly good predicament, with both my hands bound and unable to free the other. I rolled my eyes, then attempted to pull the chains loose with my teeth, of course to no avail.

I growled, then put the edge of the chain on the tip of my night stand's drawer, hoping to pry them off.

"You aren't going to be able to get them off that easily," Hiei commented idly from the window.

"Screw off!" I shouted, then blinked, calmed immediately by the stunned look he gave me. "…What? Like I've never told you to go away. Yeesh."

"No, it isn't that," Hiei replied, then recovered the snide ness in his voice. "Hn. Don't pride yourself, ningen. I just wasn't expecting it."

"Well, why not? You were annoying me."

Hiei sighed, looking at me as if I were the most incompetent creature alive. "Not the petty insult; I bet you don't even realize what you did, do you?"

I blinked cluelessly.

"Hn. As I thought. You're as block-minded as Kuwabarra, and just as unobservant."

I twitched. "Don't you compare me to—"

"Calm down; I will compliment you on your strength through your stupidity," he growled.

I blinked again. "'Strength'?"

"Look at your hand, fool."

I stared at him for a moment before looking down; both of the chains were snapped off and only still in my hands because I was constricting them mercilessly. "…Oh." I tried to let go, but my hands were still unusable. "Wait, how—Ahh, never mind." I sighed, then concentrated on my index finger of my right hand, ignoring Hiei snickering cruelly at my attempts, and lifted it slowly, feeling it snap back into place with a wince. I did the same to all of my fingers on my right hand, then switched to my left and continued.

I stretched out my hands in flexes after they were both mobile, and sighed, flopping backward. "You aren't going to make me do that again for a while, right?"

"Hn. I'll leave you to find out."

"…That's a yes, isn't it?" I replied in a flat, unenthused tone.

Hiei smirked. "Hn. Of course it is."

I groaned, and without further speech fell backward onto the gentle fluff of my pillows. "We done?"

"For now, I suppose. I was thinking we could get more in than that, but I can see now this 'training' will require more time than I'd thought."

"Oh, shut up," I mumbled faintly, tired already—probably from the anger—and closed my eyes, letting sleep claim me.

* * *

The week was made up of me learning new katas. I asked Hiei the second day what katas had to do with fighting, as I had never seen the point in karate class either, since your opponents will not follow the kata in a fight, but Hiei just ignored me and showed me another. Thus I did not ask again.

Once my dad caught me in the backyard doing one of the katas, early in the morning when he first woke up, but I just said that I couldn't sleep and was practicing karate. He wouldn't have believed it had he been fully awake, but he hadn't had coffee yet and listened to what I said. Hiei had sensed my dad coming, or seen him, and had disappeared out of sight far before my dad could have seen him. It was after that minor incident that I told Hiei we should probably do it somewhere less obvious than my backyard.

He agreed. "We don't have time to make the trip back to Makai every morning and get you back here before your parents get worried every day, so we'll have to think of somewhere here in Ningenkai."

At that point, my Japanese and demon terms were limited and I had no clue what 'Ningenkai' was, or why Hiei insisted upon using it in a sentence he said fully in English.

"Uhh…"

Before I could ask, he added, "Human world. But your bad language comprehension aside, I don't know this area well enough. Never did fancy America much. You'll have to choose somewhere to train."

"But you always know where to go with the Escque," I said.

"Hn. It's the same as you being able to follow me without knowing where we are, even when you can't see me. Only my senses are stronger than yours and extend further distances."

"…M'kay. What about a park, or something?"

"If you can think of one large enough where we won't encounter any humans."

"Uhm…Letchworth?"

"Any waterways?"

"…Yeah."

"Hn. No places with large amounts of water. I'd rather the training was kept to that and we weren't bothered by the Escque."

After I got used to the chains and the fact that they hurt like a bitch, but Hiei wouldn't let me do katas without them, the word 'training' was re-born in my mind as a good thing, and it made me happy to hear it once again. "Right…Uhm…Mendon Ponds Park?"

"Do you even _try_ to think before you speak, ningen? Look at the name alone. I'm guessing there's quite a bit of water in this Mendon _Ponds_ Park."

"Riiight." I thought about it. "Why don't we just find some place in the middle of no where? Like an abandoned farmland or something."

"Hn. I don't even need to ask if you know where one it. Obviously by the lack of specific names and your use of 'or something', you don't know of any."

"…No. Maybe we should just look."

"No. Until you or I find something satisfactory, you just have to pay more attention to your ningens and when they wake up."

Until that point, I had thought 'ningen' was some form of insult, but I looked up at him when he said it with an 's' and as a name for my parents. "Hiei, what does 'ningen' mean, exactly?"

"Human."

I twitched. "Wait, you've been calling me '_human'_ all this time!"

"Yes. I thought you'd picked up on it by now."

"But I'm obviously _not_ human!"

"Your point? You were born in a human world, live with humans, and neither your human-dubbed name or Chichiro suits you, so I will call you ningen."

"…Great. It's like a nickname, only insulting."

"Hn. Not all nicknames are positive."

I sighed heavily. "Fine. Whatever. I guess we should get back to training, right?"

"If you can call this training already. We haven't done anything of use yet, I'm just working on your concentration."

"…Wait. You're making me memorize katas and have excruciating binds on my hands every morning…for _concentration_!"

"That is what I said, isn't it?"

"…Ass-hole."

Hiei just smirked at me. "No need for insulting, ningen. Let's get back to it."

I rolled my eyes. "Oh, yeah, 'no need for insulting, _human_,'" I quoted, annoyed, but I got back into the defensive stance at the beginning of the kata.

And then, suddenly, Hiei threw himself at me and punched me on the side of my face. I recoiled, sliding backward, and put up an x-block, surprised I could even do that in my shock. "What t—" But he came at me again, and I was barely able to block one punch, let alone the flurry that came at me soon after. Within seconds I was on the ground and staring at him disbelievingly, beaten easily, and I blinked. I had been suspicious and angry before with the Manawyn, but now I was afraid of him. I had regained my trust only to have him beat the crap out of me? Gee, what a wonderful month I was having. I didn't even speak to ask or comment, and I was half-assuming to get my throat slit.

"Are you just going to sit there? I didn't even use any spirit energy, ningen."

I blinked again, then my delayed-connection fused together and I shot onto my feet. "What! That was part of _training_!"

"Of course. I wouldn't waste my time killing you, let alone getting your trust only to break it. If I wanted you dead, I would have already killed you by now." He sighed. "Now get back into your defensive stance, and this time, don't put _all_ of your concentration into it. Pay attention to your surroundings. Even a lower-level Escque could have killed you then."

I growled, sighing heavily to show my annoyance, then got back into the stance I'd been in, still shaking lightly, wary of Hiei. He didn't make any move to attack me this time, and I moved through the kata with only half concentration, and I realized immediately after I threw a wrong kick that I had screwed it up.

"Hn. See what fear does to you? You're trembling like an Italian Greyhound and your concentration is shot."

I stared at him. He was too unpredictable for me. Sure, this would be good training, but it sure as hell wasn't making trusting him very easy. My cheek still throbbed, as well as my sides and my neck from when he had attacked me. I was angry for a moment, but then I calmed and reminded myself that he was a demon, not a human. He wasn't finding any amusement from this like any jerk humans would have, he was actually trying to train me. I tried to concentrate more on the kata this time, starting over, but I was still too paranoid of another attack.

"This is exactly why I haven't actually started any combat training. You need to learn how to recover quickly. You're distracted. I know you're not ADD, but you're acting it."

I blinked. "You know what ADD is?"

"Hn."

"…Okay." I decided to take that as a yes, and I breathed slowly for a few seconds, and got back into focusing in on the kata, keeping my mind open for attack anyway.

When I finished without mistake, Hiei nodded. "Better. But you're only watching _me_ for a threat. Don't just rule out entirely the possibility of another enemy in wait."

I growled. "I don't see why you want me to do this. I'm not going to be doing a kata in the middle of a fight."

"No, you won't be. But you could—" I was unable to even register that he was gone before I felt a sharp pressure on my back, and I flew forward. "—just be talking."

I slammed onto the fence and wished it hadn't been there and I had gone sailing through the air rather than catching myself, because it knocked the wind out of me and pierced my fingers with the thorns from the blackberry bushes which grew along the mesh.

I sensed Hiei set his leg back down and get out of his offensive stance, standing normally with his hands in his pockets. "Talking uses less focus, and I was still able to catch you off guard even while you were expecting another attack. Imagine outside a fight, just spending time with one of your ningen friends…the Escque could kill you both before you even suspected anything."

I was more pissed off with myself than with him, mainly because I hadn't seen that coming, and also because I had to recover my breath before I stood off the fence. In that time of recovery, Hiei could have killed me a thousand times over. I brought my hand across my chest, feeling a slow trail of blood oozing from where one of the broken mesh had grazed the skin next to my ribs, but that was the last thing on my mind. I lowered my arm and recovered the stance yet again.

"That's a scary face," Hiei said sarcastically, monotonously. "I'd say your anger is clouding your senses."

"I can think fine," I snarled, and stood away from the fence a bit before starting the kata yet another time. I ignored what he had said before about the 'other enemies' that could have been waiting…I just didn't want _him_ specifically to get me again. I finished it without issue, and straightened, not in any defined stance. "And now?"

Hiei flickered from my view, and I snapped downward into a defensive stance, but no attack came. I twitched, trying to sense him, but he sent out an energy wave that made my head buzz and killed my sensing ability. And then I used my ears and eyes, but it was too windy for any rusting to seem out of place, and I saw nothing. My awareness was still distorted by the wave of energy, and I was light-headed. Light-headed and afraid of attack. If I had thought about it then, it wouldn't have been the guaranteed pain that scared me, and I wouldn't have been able to say what it had been. But something about Hiei being the one attacking me brought on a thick sense of fear.

And then I sensed something, the slightest of things, in the thick mist of energy, and I whipped backward and spun around to block—nothing. And thes I realized he had counted on me sensing him and had gotten out of the way just in time, as I felt the top of his foot slam against the back of my neck. I heard something snap, but it was nothing major, I just had to crack my neck backward for it to stop aching. I hadn't expected him to attack a few more times in a row, but he did, and I blocked three punches, but as I blocked my left side with my arm high to cut off his fist, he swung his leg around and caught me in the ribs.

I stumbled back and coughed, feeling the tiniest stream of blood come to my mouth, and I spit it sideways before straightening and I stifled my coughing.

"Standing there and waiting for attack does not make you strong," Hiei growled, walking without attack-intention toward me from behind, and he came to stand next to me a few feet off. "Do not make the mistake of thinking because you can handle pain that you're progressing."

It killed the minor pride I had regained, but it wasn't much of a loss. "Just tell me what to do," I replied monotonously.

Hiei didn't respond for a moment, and then he shrugged with a 'hn' and flickered from view, and with his energy mist gone, I could sense him leap to the roof without looking. "We're done," he called down. "Tomorrow we will actually start training."

Looking upward to see him walk out of my sight on the roof toward the tree, I spat another small amount of blood from my mouth and wiped my lips on my hand, examining the thick red liquid with minor wonder before spitting a last time and heading inside.


	12. Dreams and Spontaneous Combustion

**Disclaimer:** Neither Hiei, nor Yu-Yu-Hakusho is mine.

**Claimer:** Chichiro is mine, Kaze is BritKit, Aria is FoxWitch. While not all the characters are mine, all writing, storylines and concepts in this fanfiction (Save any YYH references) are.

* * *

Not that I thought he had been, but Hiei wasn't lying about starting training. Or that the 'concentration' preparation wasn't real training—I learned how correct he was in that instance the hard way.

He woke me and told me he had found a suitable place for training. "We won't use it save for today and perhaps a few other times, but for now it is perfect for what I'm planning on showing you today."

"Great." I grinned. "How far away is it?"

"Using your legs…much too far. Which is why I'm going to have to carry you again."

The concept had a somehow welcoming sound, but the fact that he said 'have to' ticked me off. "Well, jeez, if it's such a horrible thing to carry me, don't feel ob—"

"I didn't mean that. Now come on, I don't want to waste time with your rambling."

He picked me up again and sprang out the window, and we flew over my dark town. I looked up to see the moon, trying to keep myself distracted enough that my joy at being in Hiei's arms wouldn't take over and make me grin or think something I'd regret.

I had to admit it—despite the fact that he wasn't an exact version of what the anime depicted him as, I was still a hopeless fangirl. After all, the only differences between him and his anime self were positive ones.

…Which made me suddenly wonder. "Hey, who arranged for the anime to be created?"

"That was random," he responded tonelessly, but answered anyway. "But if you must know, first realize it was a manga initially like most animes." As I have said before, then my language-range (Mainly in Japanese and demon) and knowledge of things was still limited—I had never seen the manga in stores, or read it, obviously, so because I had never seen it I didn't think it existed. Carelessly human trait of me. "It was Kurama who thought of the idea…he thought the world should know what we did for them, without him directly telling them."

"If it was Kurama's idea, why is Yusuke the main character?"

"Because Kurama knew there would be fans out there quite like you who would believe the manga to be truthful or based on truth, and thus he feigned a few storylines, edited the truth, and gave Yusuke the spotlight because he was the Spirit detective."

"What about the author? Why doesn't it say Kurama wrote it, with his human name as the author?"

"Unfortunately he decided to request my aid with implanting the idea into the mind of a human, who believed he had thought up the concept himself. The human he chose was a friend who thought that he had chosen Kurama's name because he knew him, and at the time Kurama used his real name as a penname when he wrote for magazines and the like."

"So this human stole the concept and called it his own? That suc—"

"It was Kurama's choice, and I didn't really care. Yusuke and the others simply wanted their story told and had no problem with it. Let the human believe he thought of it. It did no harm." Hiei sighed. "Unfortunately, when someone believes an idea to be their own they take liberties upon it, and in editing he changed the original story somewhat."

"Is that why Kurama looks like a girl? Or…does he actually look like a girl?"

That earned a small chuckle from Hiei, and I could feel his torso moving against my back as he laughed. "No, he doesn't. And his hair isn't so randomly spikey, either. It's actually straight enough to earn jealousy from human females."

I looked up at Hiei, forcing down my natural fangirl-thoughts, and blinked at his hair. It was as gravity-defying as it was in the anime, thought it looked much cooler in reality…whatever thoughts I had prior to actually meeting Hiei about how much hair gel he had to use had been killed; it looked completely natural for his hair to be sticking up like that, and any other way would have seemed abnormal. "…But yours is all randomly spikey."

"Hn. Don't ask me why the human decided to change Kurama's."

"Does he actually look like a girl?" I asked after a moment's pause.

Another laugh from Hiei, and I couldn't help but let a small smile slide across my lips. "No, actually. He's a 'pretty boy', in human terms, there isn't any denying that, but he doesn't look feminine in the least."

"And his hair color? I mean, your anime hair has blue at the tips, but really there's just an awesome blue sheen across all of your hair, like you dyed it or something." Embarrassed by letting the 'awesome' escape, I willed myself not to pause and continued. "Is it the same with Kurama's, where it's only kind of different? Is his hair really _that_ red?"

"You sure are curious this morning," Hiei sighed. His voice was so deep and soothing. I knew I loved his anime form—that was a given. Did that mean I loved him, too? I couldn't say I had ever really _loved_ someone other than his anime self, so I couldn't tell easily. 'Crush' didn't suit what I felt for him, but I didn't think 'love' did, either…that didn't leave many more possibilities for words. "Yes, his hair really is that red. It's completely unnatural looking."

I grinned. "Oh, and yours is natural looking, I suppose?"

"Well, you just thought a few seconds ago that it looked natural, didn't you?" he muttered.

I blushed furiously as I wondered how many of my thoughts he had caught…I noticed only when he mentioned my thoughts how open my mind was to him, now. I really was giving him a lot of my trust. More than anyone else. I had never opened my mind to anyone, not even non-mind readers…I was too suspicious of everyone, untrusting. I had never really noticed how much so until I began to trust him.

"Calm down," he said without looking at me, springing off another tree into the next, "I'm not consistently reading your mind. It was just a loose enough thought that my jagan picked it up despite your mind block."

"'Mind block'?"

"Well, your mind isn't exactly open. To be completely honest, I haven't seen a mind so shut and unwelcoming as yours since I met Kurama." He paused. "I could see into Yusuke's mind without problem, even though he tried to block my intrusion. The fool, Kuwabarra, was no match for my jagan, though his mind never posed any interest. The humans, Botan and the Midget Prince—" I stifled a giggle as he said 'midget prince', because although the term matched Koenma, it was funny coming from someone as short as Hiei. He was taller than in the anime, but it was only slightly more, and he was still short. "—were also simple to get past, but Kurama's was like a death trap to even attempt to get in to. And he always sensed it."

"Great, so I have a deathtrap as a mind?"

"Hn. That isn't a bad thing."

Something in Hiei's voice told me I should be proud of the fact rather than dislike it, and I smiled lightly.

In what seemed than less than two minutes, Hiei landed and stopped moving forward. "We're here."

I moved my mouth to the side, unsure of how exactly to get down, as Hiei wasn't moving to let go, but then I realized why—we were above a huge canyon.

Immediately, my fear of height slammed onto me like a few thousand bullets, and I recoiled closer to Hiei.

"I can somehow understand your phobia, despite how pointless, but don't be afraid when I have you."

I tried to relax at his words, but the extreme distance downward, which in the dark faded into infinite-seeming blackness, still made fear flare up. "What are we doing here?"

"Obviously we're going to train here. I used your fear against you yesterday for concentration, and I'll do it again today. But besides the convenience of your height-phobia, the rocky and uneven terrain is a prime example of what I enjoy fighting on. It will get you more used to what other places you could find yourself fighting in, rather than smooth pavement and fields like recently."

Again, I used my tactic of breathing slowly to calm myself, and I gave myself the mental note of: _Don't be an idiot—Hiei won't let go._ And then, considering Hiei's personality, I added, _And if he does…well…at least the extreme, spontaneous pressure change will probably kill you or make you pass out before you hit the bottom._

"Where are we, anyway?"

"The Letchworth place you mentioned before. I figured if the Escque wanted to come for us, at least they could when I was training you. It would teach you better of multiple opponents than I can alone, because obviously I'm a single being."

"Yeah…okay."

"Hn. Close your eyes if you don't want to scream," Hiei told me and sprang off across the canyon.

Too late a warning. I didn't scream, no, but I shut my eyes and curled onto Hiei's chest, biting my lip. I was too scared by the prospect of flying over the extreme height to care that I was clenching Hiei's cloak and was acting like a child—normally I would have been embarrassed by the concept of nearly hugging myself to Hiei, but my mind was too distracted.

A minute or two later, I finally unclenched my hand, and looked up at Hiei as I felt his eyes on me, my own linking with his crimson orbs. "You do realize we landed about ten seconds after you closed your eyes? It's been roughly eighty seconds now."

I blinked, blushing lightly, and Hiei gathered that I was recovered from the fear enough to know he was letting me down, and I stood up in front of him. "Right, sorry."

"Hn."

I looked around. The canyon was about fifteen feet behind Hiei, and in front of him and myself was a large rocky slope, upon which was a thin forest that led to a thicker, denser set of woods.

"So…what are you going to show me today?" I looked at him quickly, making sure he was still next to me and not trying to catch me off guard. "You aren't going to randomly attack me like before, right?"

"Hn. I just might."

I looked down at my jeans and hoodie, realizing by my normal attire that I wasn't transformed. "Uhh…you going to make me transform?"

"No. That's exactly what we're starting with."

"But…why aren't you going to make me transform?"

"Because I won't always be at a convenient distance to do so, and if you rely on your other body so greatly, you'll be dead within a week."

"…Okay."

"Do you remember those energy balls you summoned before, in the city?"

"Yeah."

"Summon them again."

I looked down at my hands. "But…this form's never been able to conjure things like that."

"Just do it."

I attempted, closing my eyes and feeling energy gather into my hands. I opened my eyes and blinked when there was nothing there. "What the hell? I thought…" I trailed off, then lowered my hands. "See? I can't."

"Well, no, if you insistently tell yourself that, I suppose by your eyes you can't." Hiei raised his own hand and summoned a fireball, which I had never seen him do in real life, and my pyromaniac side took over momentarily and I stared at it with a blank grin. "You can see this, can't you?"

"Well, it's kind of hard to miss."

"So is what you just summoned, but you're telling yourself it is impossible for this form to summon energy, and your eyes were unable to see it." Hiei discarded the fireball with a chuck over his shoulder, into the ravine. I dared not watch it go down for fear the canyon was deeper than I thought.

"But I didn't summon anything."

Hiei rolled his eyes. "Try again and don't lower your arm."

"Uhm, okay." I tried again, not closing my eyes, expecting nothing. I felt the slightest bit of warmth in my hand, but I figured I was just hoping too hard that it would work.

Hiei looked at my hand, back at me and back to my palm again. "You can't see that, can you?"

I slid my gaze sideways and met his blood-colored glance. "…What?"

"Hn. Typical." He pressed his fingers to the center of my forehead, and a screaming pain flew to where his hands touched, but briefly before I recoiled from him I saw a fierce red light emitting from my open hand.

I covered the spot on my brow with my hand, whimpering lightly. The pain faded as soon as his hold was broken by my arm lashing out to knock it away, but it was the shock and unexpectedness of it that made me complain verbally without words. "What the hell was that!" I finally managed, my voice cracking lightly.

"Hn. Already forgot what my jagan feels like?"

I rubbed my brow—nothing was on it, and the pain was completely gone now. "Well, if that was the same jagan-thing as before, why did you have to use your hand?"

"Because I only partially used my jagan, and I shifted your body through the transformation only in your eyes, so you could see what you had summoned."

"But I didn't—" I cut off. "Wait—I actually summoned energy? I just couldn't see it?"

"I told you before that the only reason you can see the rifts was because you choose to. If you choose to believe your normal form cannot do anything, you won't be able to see or use what it can do."

"Ooookay…and that means…?"

"That means stop thinking about how inferior you believe you are and accept reality. You're acting like a simple child."

"At least you didn't call me human," I mumbled.

Hiei smirked. "That would have come next."

I pretended to ignore the comment, and I tried again to summon something. A faint, clear shimmering shape came into my palm, which encouraged me, and I sent more energy out.

Hiei leaned backward to dodge something I couldn't see, and I stopped letting energy escape. "What is it?"

Hiei looked at me for a moment with what could have been described as disbelief mixed with 'Are you really that stupid?', and then he chuckled lightly. "Just because you can't see something doesn't mean you should make it stronger so you can. There were shatters of your energy flying everywhere."

"…Whoops."

Hiei shook his head. "At least you realize it's there. Now let yourself think you'll be able to see it and you will."

I sighed, trying a last time, and a small red glow flared on my hand and became a circular, softball-sized sphere. I grinned. "What do I do with it?"

"Well, you had no problem letting the other summons fade."

"…I don't know how I did it! I didn't even know they were there!"

Hiei pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment, then looked back to me with his 'You're-the-most-incompetent-thing-alive' look. "Just stop thinking about it and let it go."

I lowered my arm, but it remained floating above my palm nonetheless.

Hiei sighed. "Throw it somewhere. Just don't hit me or the trees with it."

I looked at it for a moment, thinking of what a waste of my spiritual energy it was, and suddenly it flattened against my palm and burned my skin, then disappeared. I flinched—it felt like I had set newly lit matches across the entirety of the underside of my hand.

Hiei blinked, looking surprised, then spoke, "Well, I was planning on showing you that next, but obviously you have it down."

"What, burning myself?"

"…You don't know what you just did, do you?"

"Not a clue."

"You absorbed it, fool."

"Uhuh…great. Any way of making it not hurt when I do?"

"No. But it can't of hurt much, with how small that orb was."

"Well, gee, I guess that means it wouldn't hurt if I whipped one at you?"

"Your body should be used to your own energy," he snapped back. "It shouldn't have hurt unless you had expelled a large amount."

"It did anyway! Care to explain?"

"No, actually, I wouldn't care to."

I twitched. "Ass."

"…Bitch."

"Bastard," I growled back, not expecting the insult to fly back at me so quickly.

"Ningen."

"Jerk."

He didn't reply for a moment. "Hn. You aren't worth it." He sprang into the tree nearest him.

"Hey! What do you mean by that? Not worth what?"

"Speaking."

I twitched again. "Well, obviously I am, since you just explained yourself _by_ speaking."

"Hn."

"…You just going to sit up there? I thought you were supposed to be training me." Briefly it seemed funny to me how casually we switched mood toward one another—having an insult war, then talking normally.

"Find something to blow up and see if you can," he replied, closing his eyes.

I glared at him a moment. "What do you mean? That isn't training."

"If you can crumble that Cliffside over there, no, I guess it wouldn't be. But if you can't, then maybe it is."

I growled, muttering, "Damn Jaganshi," under my breath, and walked up the hill toward the cliff face he had indicated with the movement of his head.

…It was huge. "Hey!" I shouted over at him. "I can't blow this up!"

"Well, then I guess this can be considered training."

I clenched my teeth as I spoke so I wouldn't get pissed. "No, it can be considered a _reason_ for training."

"Don't question me," he snarled back. "You wanted me to train you, and here we are. Now do it."

I tried not to think of how many 'just do it's and 'now do it's I'd heard lately and I veered my eyes back to the cliff face. I summoned an energy ball and chucked it underhand without force, causing a large amount of dust and rock chips, but when it cleared, the dent was only about a foot in diameter, and about six inches back. "Uhh…Hiei? Not working."

"Hn. Try standing back and actually doing something useful."

I put more distance between myself and the cliff, and I threw an overhand energy ball, which made a larger dent, but it still wasn't deep, or enough to blow up the entire Cliffside.

"…Still not working," I called backward to him.

"Hn."

"Oh, gee, you're helpful, O Great Teacher." I glared back at the huge stone face, then I stood back and began summoning an energy ball, watching it get larger and larger, and after a moment, it began touching back to my skin—somehow too heavy to float anymore, I guess, and I was barely able to hold it. Energy balls are light and don't go too noticed when they're small—least not to the holder. But when they were roughly the size of three basketballs squished and still circular anyway, they became heavy and felt like titanium.

I stood a moment wondering how to throw it, and then I suddenly grinned lightly. I brought my left arm back and threw it forward, slamming into the energy ball and thrusting a long, thin energy blast to send the ball into the Cliffside.

As the Cliffside began to crumble, I considered the fact that I probably would have been smiling at my accomplishment, had the entire rock face not been crumbling _at_ me. With surprising speed and force.

I felt an arm around my torso, and I suddenly was out of the way and in a tree some forty feet off. "I said destroy it, not get yourself killed!"

I grinned at Hiei. "Well, I did destroy it, and I didn't get killed. So I'd say I beat that easily."

Hiei growled. "Because I was there to get you out of the way—don't count on it the next time you decide to be stupid."

I heaved a large breath to illustrate my annoyance, and snapped back, "Well, you're the one who _told_ me to shoot it."

"Crumble it, not make it spontaneously explode right in front of you!"

"And how had you expected me to do that otherwise!"

"I didn't expect you to do it at all!"

"Then why did you tell me to do it!"

"If you had used your brain you would have _asked_ for my help, not just been too stubborn to, and then you could have avoided that entirely!"

"But I did!"

"No, you just said you couldn't do it, you never asked."

I clenched my hands, then snorted. I looked over at the rockside, which was still mostly a giant clump of smoke. "…What do you think the humans will say about that?"

"If you make it rain, they can blame it on a mudslide."

"But…mudslides are caused by…mud. Not cliffs."

"Humans are too quick to assume that nothing's out of the ordinary. Unless you want a giant flock of human trying to figure this out, I'd advise you just make it rain."

"…Fine."

Hiei picked me up again, for real this time rather than just an arm around my upper body to get me out of the way, and as he leapt back toward my town, there was a large flash of lightning that did not make any sound, and it began to pour.

Sure enough, the next day the humans blamed it on a mudslide in the morning news.

* * *

…Apparently demon females don't have menses, so I learned one morning upon getting mine. (Hiei: "What the hell happened? You're bleeding everywhere!")

So, cranky as usual, I spent the next ten minutes explaining in detail the concept of a menstrual cycle and why I had one.

Afterwards, Hiei just stared at me in mild disgust.

"Well," I growled, "why don't demon females get them?"

"Hn. To make this easy, let me just use your faith to answer—demons aren't the ones who pissed off God in Eden, it was humans. So he has no need to punish demons."

"…God, that's so annoying."

Of course, this didn't buy me a break from training. Not that I wanted it to—I quite enjoyed training when I wasn't almost crushed by a huge-ass pile of rocks.

Hiei took me to a different place that day…I didn't recognize it, but I hadn't paid attention to how long it took to get there. I wasn't even sure if we were still in the same state.

It was a completely clear field that was a few hundred feet from a mountain range. I couldn't see any civilization anywhere.

…I didn't think that even existed in America. And when my mind made me think of yodelers, I had to wonder as well if we were even in the same _country_.

"What today, O Great Teacher?"

Hiei looked down at me and let me stand. "Hn. Is that a new nickname?"

"Yup." I smirked. "I randomly decided that your name's irrelevant. So you're 'O Great Teacher' or 'Jaganshi'."

He just looked at me for a moment, and 'Hn'ed again. "Which only means you'll be calling me by my name within a few minutes, knowing you."

I grinned. "You know me well."

He looked away when I said it, and I was confused out of smiling for a moment, then I decided to disregard it. "But really, though. What are we doing today?"

"Endurance."

"…Uhm. You mean…like, track or something?"

"If you consider going up that mountain to be 'track'." He indicated the mountain nearest us with a flick of his head.

I blinked, thinking, then I winced as an idea came to mind. "You're not going to let me transform, are you?"

"If I did, this wouldn't be training. Your other form already has endurance. After all, it is fully demon."

"Do I at least get breaks?"

"No."

"…And if I decide to take one?" I growled defiantly.

"Then I break a leg or two. Because obviously if you take a break you can't use them and have no use for them."

I tried to figure out whether he was serious or not, and then I decided I probably wouldn't _want_ to know the truth and shivered lightly.

"So…am I going alone?"

"I could scale the mountain a hundred times to-and-from before you could even get twenty feet up. I'm not waiting around for you."

"…Is that a no?"

"That's an 'I'll be at the top'."

And then he was gone, and I growled, gritting my teeth at nothing in particular, then I sighed heavily and began walking toward the mountain. It was about a hundred feet behind me across the field. _Well,_ I thought, _at least he didn't say I had to run, right?_

I was about a fourth of the way up the steep, rocky slope my body started to feel numb, save my legs, which burned. I looked back, grinning at how far I'd come—it was a long ways down, and I wasn't sure why I had randomly lost my fear of heights momentarily, but when I turned back to what I had to finish climbing, I was immediately disappointed. Way too much to climb. Then I realized it would take much longer than I had thought to get there…my parents would definitely be awake by then.

As if agreeing with me, the sun chose that moment to show as a faint red glow on the horizon. I looked sideways, across the expanse of the mountain, and nearly paused to watch the sky redden, but then I remembered Hiei's threat and I imagined a chibi version of him cackling maniacally and I ran a hand through my hair with a low sigh, continuing on.

I still liked my legs somewhat, and I'd rather they remained attached to me and un-broken.

Within an hour, I had a few hundred feet left to the top. Somehow this form of training annoyed me…maybe because I knew Hiei would probably pull the cheap trick of making me go back down the mountain by myself.

Completely unmotivated, I heaved a large sigh and began to walk a bit faster. I could only guess if Hiei would let me take a break at the top or not. I decided to doubt.

But my thoughts were cut short as a huge explosion above me sent a tumble of large rocks toward me, and I skidded to a stop, monitoring the falling pile of boulders for a brief couple of seconds before I chose a side to run toward and I shot off to the right, narrowly throwing myself out of the way before I was crushed.

Then I gathered what Hiei was planning, and I was barely able to flip around onto my back before he dove at me, and I blocked with crossed arms above my torso, swinging my left leg upward in a wave, missing him as he dodged and came at me again. I spiraled my legs above me and heaved my arms outward, surprising myself by being able to flip backward even though I wasn't transformed. I felt his foot graze my back between my shoulder blades, and I landed in a crouch, thrusting energy from my arm and at him, spinning to follow his movements with my attacks. He came at me again, his fist catching the side of my face, and I tried to grab it with my own hand, but he was gone in the next second, and his leg caught me in the ribs.

_What have I gotten myself into?_ I though with exasperation, shooting a ball of energy at him from my fingertips rather than gathering one in my hand to throw…which gave me an idea. Spreading my fingers out on both of my hands, I shot energy from all of my fingertips like bullets, and I saw Hiei grin as he sprang out of the way.

I could only assume that meant he thought I was learning. Or something. But my short-lived return grin was exactly that: short-lived. He was suddenly above me, and I quickly abandoned my idea of trying to shoot at him while he was coming toward me, and I pressed myself downward and rolled out of the way, but his fist slammed onto the right side of my ribcage and I gritted my teeth against the pain, fairly sure I'd heard or felt something break, but I was immediately on my feet again, and I swung my arm sideways to smack on to the back of his neck.

I thought I might have heard him grunt in pain, but my short-lasting worry quickly ceased as he brought his arm over his shoulder even though he hadn't even looked backward and grabbed my arm just before my elbow and swung me forward, into the ground.

The metallic taste of blood in my mouth made me forget the pain on my back, as the red liquid had always thrilled me to the point of ignoring what had caused the taste in the first place. I leaned backward then chucked myself forward and back onto my feet, and I threw a punch and caught him square in the face with my fist.

…I have to admit, the feeling of contact surprised me immensely. I didn't think I'd ever be able to actually hit him if he was facing me. I suddenly noted in that moment that Hiei must have disengaged the Ofuda, because I felt no pain, and I was positive I had hit him.

He flew backward and into the ground like I had just been, but he regained his footing even quicker than I and was immediately back to attacking me.

He bent his bandaged right arm in front of him and swung it outward to slam onto the side of my neck, and my vision blurred with the contact of his straight-facing fist. I hit something when he sent me flying, and for a short while I couldn't move, not even to open my eyes, and when I did Hiei's sword was at my throat.

I closed my eyes again, briefly. My trust in him was very queer. It seemed now that I trusted him completely, but it wouldn't have surprised me if he had run his sword through my neck then…but that wouldn't have meant it would break my trust in him. I guess I thought if he had a reason to kill me than he should, it had no matter of trust in the issue.

But then I heard metal sliding against something, and I heard the hilt of his sword click against the sheath. I was breathing heavily, and when I finally looked up at him again he looked pleased. But not with himself…rather, it seemed he was pleased with me.

And then I realized my jeans felt looser than usual, and I looked down to see my legs to be slimmed down. Which meant that I was transformed.

…But, how? And why? After all, Hiei hadn't done it and…

Then it hit me. _Hiei didn't do it…I did._

"I see you've finally found out how your transformation works." He was smirking when I shifted my gaze back to him. "Or maybe your body just believed somehow that you were in danger and needed to transform."

"I knew I wasn't in danger," I growled, my voice raspy, and I struggled to my feet, Hiei's eyes following mine as I stood.

"Hn."

I was still gasping for breath—fighting Hiei, even for such a short time, was harder and more energy consuming than fighting the Escque. Or doing anything else I could think of that I had ever done, for that matter. "Are you going to make me go back down the mountain myself? Because I really don't think—" And then my head rang with silence and went blank for a moment, and I felt my legs buckle beneath me. I guess the amount of energy I had used, despite the fact I knew it had been quite a lot, had been more than I'd assumed. Either that or the whole hitting-the-tree when I fell messed up my body for a while. I figured it was probably both.

Hiei held out a hand to help me up, which somehow made me feel fuzzy inside and I smiled lightly as I took it. After we linked hands, I almost expected him to chuck me somewhere and tell me I should have paid more attention, or let go and laugh, or something evil to the effect, but he did nothing of the sort and actual aided me in standing.

When I had he shook his head. "No. I may seem cruel to you, but I'm well aware you wouldn't be able to on your own."

I wondered what to do, and then he walked closer to me and I awkwardly put my arms around his neck as he picked me up, and sprang off down the mountainside. I let my arms slide down from his shoulders, my fingertips briefly touching his collarbone, and I realized then that he wasn't wearing his cloak. I wondered how long ago he'd taken it off and how I hadn't noticed, but at least he wasn't shirtless and I hadn't been too unobservant to notice that (Though it would have been nice if he _had_ lost his shirt. The mental image of Hiei shirtless made me blush lightly, for although he had strategically found a way to take it off at any possible point in the series, I guess in real life it was different.), but he was still wearing his usual black shirt and baggy pants.

My neck was throbbing lightly where Hiei's hand had hit it, and the back of my neck also hurt, but it was in the wrong place for me to assume it was where I had hit Hiei before, so it had to have been from when I hit the tree. I closed my eyes and let my head rest against Hiei's chest, though I was mildly embarrassed about it—after all, I was already weird feeling enough being in his arms, and leaning against him in what could be considered a sign of affection didn't make me feel any less odd about the situation. But I was tired and because of where on my neck Hiei hit me, my mind felt far away (He had probably hit a pressure spot.), so I'd rather get myself into a comfortable position…I knew I was most likely going to pass out within a few minutes to a few seconds.

I felt Hiei chuckle lightly. I figured it was the same as the last time I did that, when he had said "You sure got comfortable fast", but he said nothing in explanation. He obviously knew I was loosing consciousness quickly too, or maybe he thought I already had.

And then, on cue, my eyes rolled backward and I fell limp in his arms.

My sleep was riddled with torturous dreams I didn't remember after I woke. All I knew was that I was trembling fiercely when did, and I was in my bed, again sweating the same cold sweat I had the last time I had dreamt horrid things.

The foreboding was growing. Rapidly. I looked out at Hiei, only faintly surprised to catch his ruby-eyed gaze looking back at me. He looked surprised at something, and I realized he could probably see my dreams if he chose. Did he know what I had dreamt?

I tried to tell myself the foreboding was the fault of the dreams and I was just being a child, but Hiei's red eyes also somehow looked confused and serious.

Maybe I wasn't being such a child after all.


	13. Wounds and Confessions

**Disclaimer:** Neither Hiei, nor Yu-Yu-Hakusho is mine.

**Claimer:** Chichiro is mine, Kaze is BritKit, Aria is FoxWitch. While not all the characters are mine, all writing, storylines and concepts in this fanfiction (Save any YYH references) are.

* * *

My parents were insistent on me doing something the next day. I was still tired from sparring with Hiei, but I agreed finally, mostly so they'd stop nagging and increasing my horrid headache. I told them I didn't feel like doing anything, and if they insisted upon making me do something then they should choose what.

Getting together with a friend was the first suggestion of theirs. I said no. Then, going to a park. I told them I was tired and parks wouldn't hold my interest. Then, they suggested shopping. I just quirked a brow and they took my answer swiftly without needing me to speak. Then, they finally tried swimming at my grandpa's house, and I agreed. The idea of swimming was welcoming.

I took a skirt wrap to cover my legs—after all, they were quite scratched up and I didn't want parental questions.

…But my arms were scratched, too, and in some places much more than scratched. So I took a sweater also and told them I was feeling chilled, which brought up the question of whether or not swimming was a good idea. I assured them it was.

In the car I slept and pretended to continue after I was awake again.

_Your human parents are worried._

I didn't open my eyes when Hiei used his jagan to speak to me. _Why?_

_You've been worn out because of training. They think you're sick._

_Let them._ Even my mental voice sounded like a mumble. I sighed. _I think I'm going to take a nap at Grandpa's, not swim._

_Hn. I doubt that's a good idea. It would only increase your parents' suspicions._

_So? They'll never find out anything._

_They could eventually_, Hiei replied. _If my jagan's power is suddenly cut off when you aren't around, you could be kept under surveillance and unable to go anywhere._

_But if I was under 'surveillance' and your jagan's power came back from wherever it had gone_ (Recall how tired I was. I didn't care if it made much sense or not.) _than you can just use it to trick them and I can start training again._

He didn't reply for a few seconds, and I felt his eyes slide over to watch my seemingly-unconscious form. _It's pointless to try and make sense to you, isn't it?_

_Yup_, I replied, amazed at how tired I was. _That's me. Stubborn as a mule, etcetera…_ I was slowly slipping back into sleep, but then the car parked and I was unable to suppress a groan.

"We're here," my mom told me in her pet-voice, trying to wake me up even though I was already.

I opened my eyes and glared at her, but I could tell by her expression that she thought it was because I had just woken up, not that I was genuinely pissed at her. I shrugged off her hand and grabbed my bathing suit from next to me on the seat and followed them inside. I went and changed in the bathroom, but I put my clothes on over it as soon as my bathing suit was on, and I went back upstairs to lie on the couch.

It always took about twenty minutes for anyone but me to be motivated to unlock the ladder on the pool, so I took the opportunity to catch up further on sleep. Or at least try.

I sensed Hiei on the roof, against the chimney, laying back. He seemed to be attempting sleep as well.

Then I was snapped out of drowsing by the movement of a chair at the table behind the couch, meaning a human was getting up to see if I wanted to swim yet. I opened my eyes and pretended like I had been awake the entire time, and my dad came over and asked the question I'd assumed he would, and I nodded.

I followed him and my grandfather outside, leaving my mother and step-grandmother inside chattering away about scrap-booking.

After they unlocked the ladder and took the cover off the pool, and I waited until my grandpa went back inside and my dad cannon-balled into the pool before quickly stripping to my bathing suit and slipping into the pool before Dad could see all my recent battle wounds. I could explain a few scratches with lame pet excuses, but there were others that were too deep and too large to be explained by anything, and my parents were naturally paranoid about my depression and often thought I cut. I hadn't cut myself since I made to Ofuda, but they were still suspicious even though they had never actually gotten me to admit that I had ever cut.

Dad swam for about twenty minutes before abandoning me and going back to join my grandparents and Mom. I didn't mind at all.

After he left, I swam to the side and brought my arms up to support myself and rested my head on them where they crossed. I sensed Hiei come on to the deck, and when I looked up I saw him sitting in a white lounge chair, which struck me as humorous.

"You seem more exhausted than I originally thought," Hiei said in a low voice. "I'll let you rest for a day or two if you feel unable to train."

"I'll be fine," I mumbled, sliding my head so I was facing frontward rather than my head being on its side, resting my chin on my hand. I closed my eyes and sighed lightly, enjoying the feel of the water lapping around me.

"You shouldn't stay like that too long," Hiei growled suddenly.

I opened one eye and looked at him from the corner of it. "Mmm?"

"Look at your arms."

I lifted my head wearily and blinked at my arms. On my left shoulder, there was a faint, thick scar from the Ofuda, and directly next to it between my shoulder and neck was the still-healing scar from the Escque's bite. Farther down my left arm were various thin cuts, but near my hand on the top of my wrist was a deep one. My right arm looked no better, and my elbow was scraped horridly, the entire way around, not just on the back, and the large strip of missing skin stretched downward toward my wrist on the underside of my arm. I didn't even remember getting that injury, but I could tolerate pain well enough by now that I had barely noticed it before Hiei had expressly told me to look at my arms.

"Yeah, I know. Nothing pretty there. But I'll be able to tell that my parents are in view when you randomly decide to disappear."

It took him only a few minutes to do so, as my unconscious need and want for rain made clouds gather in the sky, and it began to sprinkle. My parents came to get me soon after, and I was glad that they called from the deck rather than the poolside, because then it was easier to cover my wounds. I dressed without letting myself dry much, just pulling my clothes on over my bathing suit, and I tugged on my sweater, actually glad for it as now I really _was_ chilled.

Within fifteen minutes of me returning to my half-nap on the couch, my humans were ready to leave, and I got into the car and laid against the door. Because they had woken me so early, I hadn't had the chance to get more than four hours of sleep, adding the actual sleeping time in my bed to my random naps together. Four hours wasn't a bad sleeping amount, but again, I was tired from training and required more sleep than before I had began fighting.

"She's been so out of it lately." I didn't open my eyes when I heard my mom talk, and I could sense Dad look back at me, probably to check if I was awake and if it was safe or not to talk about me.

"I know," he said after deciding I was. "The circles under her eyes are huge. I don't think she's getting enough sleep."

"Maybe we shouldn't have made her come."

"She said she wanted to," my Dad replied defensively, and I suppressed a low growl. I wished they'd shut up. Their annoying human voices were ripping into my ears like a dog whistle.

_I can make you sleep despite their annoying voices, if you wish_, I heard Hiei tell me telepathically.

_That would be really nice_, I replied, my mind tone still just a mumble, and I felt his jagan slip into my mind, and then my consciousness faded.

* * *

My mind was tattered and confused when I woke—I knew that meant I had dreamt again.

Though I couldn't recall it, I knew it was the same dream every time. And something in the back of my mind told me it was about Hiei.

_Hiei?_ I was woken by my parents, but I didn't respond to their questions, which remained ignored. They must have guessed it was because I was tired as well, because they didn't ask again.

_What?_

I was heading up the stairs to my room. _Do you…Well…Can you see my dreams? With your jagan?_

_Yes…why?_

_Do you know what I've been dreaming about lately?_

He was back in my tree, and I looked over at him as I flopped down wearily on my bed. Our gaze locked for a minute or so before he finally said, _No. It's just image fragments, nothing that makes sense._

I somehow knew he was lying, but I figured he had his reasons for not telling me. As I said before, I trusted him completely. I was about to tell him I knew he wasn't telling the truth, and to at least tell me he knew what I dreamt but didn't want to say what, but then suddenly I slid away from reality before I was even aware I heading out of consciousness.

* * *

I woke with suspicions that Hiei had purposefully made me pass out to keep me from speaking, but I didn't mention it. I rubbed my eye and itched the front of my nose before sitting up. I yawned hugely, then looked at the window. It was night out, and I glanced at the clock—it was 11:20. My shoulder was throbbing more than usual, and for a moment I considered accusing Hiei of hurting himself again, but I was distracted by his expression. He appeared to be asleep, but he looked so serious anyway. Normally he looked peaceful when he was sleeping or had his eyes closed…but now he looked troubled despite.

_The dreams…?_ I wondered, but then he opened his eyes and glared over at me. "What?"

I looked down immediately. "Sorry, I didn't know you were awake."

"Hn. So sleep automatically makes it alright to stare?" he growled, but he didn't seem to expect an answer. He turned his eyes away from me as well. "Are you ready for more training?"

"Yeah. Definitely."

He took me back to the same place as the previous day. He didn't make me walk up the mountain, however. We remained in the field, and he didn't randomly attack me—he actually warned me that we were going to spar.

A few minutes into our fight, he stopped just before his fist made contact with my face, but pulled his hand back before I could grab it and try to counter attack. "You're distracted," he said bluntly.

I didn't meet his eyes. "Am I?" I mumbled faintly. "Sorry."

"Hn. It's about those dreams, isn't it?"

"…Yeah."

"Quit worrying about it. They're nothing important."

Then I linked eyes with him. "Oh? Then why did you lie about them?"

He seemed taken aback, obviously not thinking I had read into him that easily, then he just growled quietly, "Because I figured you would probably decide to nag about what they involved."

"I would have rather you just told me you'd seen them truthfully and added that you didn't want to explain them," I mumbled back.

"…Hn."

He looked behind him, turning as the sun began to rise, and seeing his form silhouetted against the red glow made me realize how much I cared about him. It wasn't love, I don't think. Not yet, at least. But it wasn't just simple caring, either. It was something in-between.

And then, sentimental feelings aside, I grinned deviously and sprang off the ground as silently as I could and leapt for Hiei. I knew he would sense it, so it didn't surprise me when he turned around just in time, but I caught him with a punch on the side of his face indifferently.

He kept himself from sliding, and he swung his arms around to loop around mine and spun me around, pinning it against my back. "Clever," he commented, and I grinned at him despite the pain of my arm being twisted at such an odd angle.

"Yeah, seem I'm learning how to use me brain." I began to gather energy at the fingertips of my pinned hand, and immediately Hiei flipped over me and out of the way, but he hadn't let go of my arm like I thought he would, and as he flipped he suddenly let go and sent me flying, and as he sprang up to attack me again, and I shot the energy I'd been gathering even though he had surprised me with the throw.

It seemed my aim hadn't faltered, even when I was in mid-air, and as the energy shot out and slashed through the very top of his shoulder, on the opposite side but the same place the Escque had bitten me a few weeks back, I felt the wound forming on my own shoulder—apparently Hiei had forgotten or didn't see the point in disengaging the Ofuda like usual. Then, as the wound formed completely on my shoulder, he seemed to recall, and suddenly the pain was gone. I blinked, surprised, as I would have thought he'd let the Ofuda stay in power during sparring, seeing as how I wasn't in any real danger here and couldn't be distracted enough to be killed, but I didn't comment on it.

I felt guilt for injuring him, even though he wanted me to try to when we were sparring—it was just how I was with him. He didn't even look like he had noted the pain, or his tolerance was much greater than mine (Which I knew, but his expression didn't even change in his eyes). Then he drew his sword, using it to block another energy ball, and I growled, wondering how exactly I could protect myself from his sword. He leapt at me and swung downward, but I was able to dodge as I was thinking of a way to block his sword slashes. I sent a kick toward him, which he ducked under, and he came at me again with his sword, and I tried to recall how to summon an energy sword like I did when we fought the Escque.

"What are you waiting for?" he asked impatiently, as if we were having a normal conversation rather than him thrusting a weapon that could kill me toward my throat. "Summon your sword!"

"I don't know how!" I growled back, getting out of the way narrowly again, but then his kick hit me directly above my spine in the middle of my back, and the ground rushed up to meet me. I rolled quickly, only guessing which way to, and luckily I was correct—Hiei's sword stabbed into the ground just beyond me, but a third of it still cut through my side as I was moving out of the way. I winced, but I didn't make any comment telling Hiei to stop.

I wasn't going to be weak about this. I refused to.

I shoved my body around in a circle with my arm, and used my legs to knock Hiei's feet from below him. As he hit the ground, I quickly reached for his sword, but his elbow crushed my fingers against the hilt before I could get a firm hold, and his fist flew toward me. I moved my head out of the way by leaning toward my hand and the sword, which made my elbow implode lightly and I flinched and shot energy from my fingers and through my own arm like an electric shock, making Hiei left go of my hand. It left my right arm fairly immobile, but I quickly reached out with my left and snatched his sword from the ground and rolled out of the way, leaping to my feet just as he did.

I was caught off guard when he sent his own energy ball at me—I knew he was capable of it, but I would have thought he'd use a fireball. Then I gathered that he probably knew his aim would hit me (Which of course it did) and thought a fireball would be too dangerous for sparring and when I was a far inferior fighter to him. His energy was blue, surprising enough to me—dark blue. But the color didn't have much meaning to me when it rammed into my torso and threw me backward, and immediately he was next to me and he bent my wrist backward until I released the sword. And then he paused for less than a second, debating on swinging it or not (I was still in pain from the energy ball and he probably was considering whether or not I would be able to dodge enough not to threaten my life), but he seemed to realize as quickly as I how odd worry would be coming from him, and his blade sailed toward me.

I raised my knee and hit him in the stomach, near the same place his energy had gotten me. It wasn't a great blow, but it was enough to give me time to dodge the blade, which quickly came toward me again. I tried to get out of the way, but he switched direction of aim just as I began to move, and his sword lanced straight through my arm, just below my elbow.

I cried out and instantaneously lost vigor for fighting, falling clumsily back to the ground, his sword still in me as it was ripped from his grasp when I fell.

He was next to me immediately, and I felt the blade slide from my arm, and I was able to look up weakly to see the large amount of blood covering the shiny steel. And then I winced as he lifted my arm from the ground, whimpering in pain. He had gotten close to snapping my bone, but I figured by how closely grazed it was that he had seen the predicament in the last second and tried to pull up with only partial luck.

I felt some sort of cloth being tied in front of the injury, at my elbow, to stop the bleeding, and then another was wrapped around the actual wound. I could feel automatic tears rolling down from my eyes—I wasn't actually crying, but the pain had made my eyes water at an unwelcome time.

And then I felt Hiei pick me up, and I winced as he positioned my arm somehow—I didn't pay attention to what position, it was just the movement of it that made it hurt. I couldn't open my eyes—I was flinching too steadily to try.

It was the oddest thing…this arm wound hurt more than the shoulders and when I had been stabbed by the Escque. But I knew the only reason was because my body didn't register the severity when something hurt. Just some things inflicted more pain than others.

I was amazed at how quickly the entire thing had gone.

Soon, however, I was out of it enough by loss of blood that I stopped noticing the pain of my arm and side.

I didn't recognize the direction I sensed him going—I could only figure that meant he was taking me somewhere else to heal or get bandages.

But I could feel that the blood flow from my arm had not ceased, and I was rapidly loosing energy. Within seconds more I was exhausted beyond even trying to open my eyes despite the fact my facial expression had relaxed.

I lost power over my body's position, and my head fell backward uncomfortably, and I felt Hiei jump my body lightly so that I was leaning on to him instead, and then I knew no more.

Until a few hours later. The only reason I knew how much time had gone by was that I had a thick bandage around my left arm around my elbow-area when I finally opened my eyes, and the bleeding had long since stopped. The blood that had soaked through the bandage was already more brown than red.

Hiei was still moving, so apparently I'd slept through stopping entirely. I looked up at him, and he met my gaze briefly before returning his crimson look at what was passing before him.

"Thank you," I whispered after a few seconds, looking back down.

"Hn."

"I'm sorry I'm always getting injured. Must get annoying after a while."

He didn't reply for a short while, then he said, "No, it was my fault this time for not realizing you weren't quick enough to dodge."

I blinked, surprised at the comment. It seemed a completely Hiei-like thing to admit that it was his fault, but it was still weird for me to hear for whatever reason, maybe because of the fact I was reminded again of the difference between him in reality and in the anime.

I leaned on to his chest, curling into a small ball. I was past being uncomfortable in his arms—it was the most comforting and natural-feeling place I'd ever been. I had no problem with letting that fact be known, either. After all, he could easily tell with his jagan if he wanted to, and thus I wasn't going to attempt to hide it.

"Hiei?"

"What?"

I closed my eyes and let the scent of him soothe me for a moment before I spoke, not opening my eyes. "Chichiro aside…if she suddenly…went away, would you…stay?" I paused. "Do you…care about me?" I didn't tell him to be honest in his response. I was fully aware he wasn't human and wouldn't act like one and lie for my sake—he would be honest no matter what his answer, that much I had faith in.

He was silent a moment, and when he spoke it wasn't the answer I had expected, but it didn't disappoint me like the one I thought was coming would have. "I don't know." His voice was soft and considering.

I opened my eyes, but found myself unable to tear my gaze away from my own legs and look at him.

And then I smiled lightly. I had assumed he'd say no…but he actually considered caring about me. I closed my eyes again and let my body go limp.

I could just sense by how loose his hold on me was compared to before that he was thinking about the question. Hard.

Which only made me happier. I wasn't sure why, but his unknowing of the answer made me think that he would care about me eventually. Maybe not then, or soon, but…eventually. And then, feeling too safe and comfortable for consciousness to seem like a welcoming idea any longer, I emptied my mind. But just before I slid off into sleep, I realized that as I was fading the pain disappeared from my arm.

…Must have been my imagination.

* * *

I was already in my bed. It was still dark out, which I could only assume meant I had woken up shortly after I'd fallen asleep, or that I had been passed out for an entire day and Hiei had just kept my parents from bothering me.

I could lightly see Arisa, my guardian, next to me and watching me with concern. She wasn't like traditional guardians—she didn't stay near me all the time like she had when I first had her, only when I needed her. I guess I hadn't felt like I needed her when the Escque stabbed me or when my shoulders were wounded, but I mustered a grin when I saw her now.

And then I realized my arm didn't hurt. I blinked over at it to see if I had dreamt the entire thing, but sure enough the bandage was there and as I moved it started bleeding again. I could still feel the blood flow, just not the pain. Weird.

I averted my eyes over to Hiei, who was sitting on his usual branch, but he had his left arm resting on his knee and he was glaring at it with extreme concentration. I watched for a moment, gathering that his gaze was so riveted on his arm that he didn't even sense my eyes. "…Hiei?"

His eyes slid away from his arm, and suddenly my sword wound seemed to recall what pain was and I flinched. Then I considered for a moment. "Did you…?" But I trailed off, realizing it would be stupid to assume what I had been assuming—that Hiei had been taking the pain from my arm a bit like with my Ofuda. "Never mind. It was a ridiculous idea."

"Hn. How so?" he growled back. "I was doing exactly what you thought I was."

I snapped my eyes back to his, stunned into silence. It wasn't the sort of thing I'd expect from Hiei…_Really_ not the sort of thing I'd expect from him. "…Why?"

"Because the pain was too constant for you to remain unconscious. You needed sleep to help you heal."

I blinked. I was still beyond surprise. "How'd you do it without an Ofuda?" And then I recalled how closely he had been concentrating on his arm, and considered how much energy it must have taken to do so.

"The only reason you require an Ofuda is because you cannot keep your attention on it long enough to keep the effect consistent."

I nodded mutely. I don't think even 'stunned' satisfied the feeling I had, then.

I looked down at my arm, but the rich, thick agony that accompanied movement was not unwelcome. I think it brought my senses more acutely to my thoughts when I was in pain. It helped me register faster his gesture and get over the initial surprise.

"How long was I out?"

"Roughly twenty hours," he replied. He didn't seem uncomfortable at all about admitting what he had done, which also struck me as odd. But I figured demons don't get as easily flustered with admitting things like that like I had with the Ofuda.

"Wow, that long?"

"The loss of blood was greater than anything else you'd encountered before. Your body had to thoroughly ensure that the wound was patched up before you woke and were able to move it again."

I nodded. I couldn't help but wonder if Hiei had been able to tolerate the pain much greater than I had…after all, his expression had been all concentration and not pained. I think I would feel guilty if he had noticed the pain a lot. Despite the fact it had been his choice. Which made me realize I had been off in being pissed at his minor guilt toward the Ofuda.

I shrugged off the thoughts, then looked over at Hiei. He was looking back at my neighbor's house as if it interested him greatly, and I couldn't help a small smile as I noticed the most miniscule trace of discomfort on his face at admitting what he'd done. I guess we weren't so different after all.

"Hey, Hiei?"

He looked over at me with a 'hn'-like noise that seemed to mean 'What?'.

"Am I…allowed to keep training?"

He looked at me hard for a moment, the said, "Do you want to?"

"…Yes."

"If you think you can I won't try and hold you back. But at least think about it with minor logic before you decide. Realize you do need to heal."

"I know." I looked back at my arm, and then glanced around my room, searching for my lavender healing oils. They were no where to be seen, and I growled lightly.

"What?"

"My healing oils. I don't know where they are."

"…You haven't even gotten up to look."

"Yeah, but I always keep them visible. I wouldn't have put them anywhere that would be hidden to me from where I am right now."

Then an idea sparked in my mind, and I leaned over to open my nightstand drawer, and I grinned and pulled out the container. It was empty, but the scent was soothing enough that it made me fail to recall the pain for a few seconds. I wondered if I had any of the supplies to create the oil with left, but I knew I probably didn't.

"Hiei?"

"What?" He sounded impatient again, as usual, back to his normal self.

"I think I'll be okay for training."

He looked over at me, blinking at me with his amazing red eyes. "Are you sure? That injury I afforded you wasn't just a paper cut."

"I know. I'll be fine." I was able to meet his crimson gaze only seconds longer before I averted my own down to my blankets. "Are we going to today?"

"No. I'd recommend another night's rest and we can begin again tomorrow."

I grinned with relief—training had already become a normal activity for me, and I would have missed not sparring or nearly being crushed by spontaneously exploding cliff sides for more than a day.

"Alright."

I laid back down from my position propped up by my right arm, and as I slid back onto the mattress my left arm flexed and I flinched as a shock of pain flew up my arm. I would have felt weird, selfish and uncomfortable asking him to do his Ofuda-like trick again, and I adjusted my left arm with my right so that it didn't hurt as much in its new position, but it still was a loud enough sting that I knew it would take me a while to sleep.

But then I felt the pain ebbing away, slowly at first, and then I was gone, and I looked toward Hiei, who was looking at my neighbor's yard again and avoiding my gaze. I smiled lightly, again with a twinge of guilt, and I considered telling him I'd be fine without it, but then he seemed to gather my possible intention and his jagan entered my mind briefly before my mind went blank and I was asleep instantaneously.

* * *

I woke to no pain, but as soon as I told Hiei I was awake it returned to my arm. _Maybe_, I finally thought, _he just feels obligated to do that because he's the one who hurt me._ But somehow I knew it was more than that. Maybe not caring…but something close.

We returned to our usual giant field near the mountain range in who-knows-where, and I quickly abandoned my idea of trying to condition myself to the pain on my arm like with the stomach wound before—flexing it lasted too long and the pain was too great. Not a great idea for this particular injury.

I found myself to be tired…probably from over-sleeping. It definitely wasn't from under-sleeping.

I marveled at how easily Hiei tricked my parents all the time. It made me realize how much simpler human minds are, and it made me glad and almost proud at what I was.

Hiei let me transform that day. He asked me if I even knew how I had done it to myself before, and I said no, so he did it for me. I knew as well as he that I could tolerate pain better when my body was fully demon. It wasn't that there was less pain…I just realized how stupid it would be to note it constantly like I did when my body was still partially human.

There was something different about the way Hiei sparred with me today. Distracted, like I had been two days ago. And was he…loosening up his moves? It seemed almost like he was going easy on me.

He didn't take the pain from my arm like before, but he did disengage the Ofuda again while we fought.

After only a short while I stopped and told him to as well. "Why are you easing up so much?" I asked him after a moment's pause to catch my breath.

"It isn't intentional if I am."

"Is it because I'm injured?"

"Didn't I just say it wasn't intentional?"

I sighed. I had to remember he was stubborn as well, probably even more so than I. "Fine." I wondered if I should attack or wait for him to, and though it was delayed somewhat, he eventually did without me purposefully waiting for it.

I blocked with my right arm—I had had to've blocked with my right all day. My left was unable to do any offense or defense beside energy attacks. It had given me a chance to focus more on my kicks.

I noticed steadily with each passing spar between me and Hiei how much better this form of training was rather than the karate classes I used to take. We hadn't been allowed to spar until we were higher belts, but in the lower belts we only learned techniques and weren't allowed to carry them out on anything. Now he had just shown me katas, and expected me to learn the techniques from them, and now I was making my attacks more and more trained as time passed.

It took us both only a few more minutes of sparring to finally realize neither of us were motivated enough to continue. "So," I said after we stopped, "can you show me how to summon an energy sword, then?"

"I've never summoned a sword quite like the one you did…all of my energy sword are precisely what they sound like they are: energy. Yours was steel, or at least it looked it."

"So…you don't know?"

"No."

I blinked. I didn't think there was anything Hiei didn't know in the world of fighting…but obviously I was wrong.

"Just try to summon an energy sword without attempting to make it look like an actual sword."

"And…how do I do that?"

"Make a short energy trail…you know how to do that, right?" I nodded at his question. "Just let it solidify."

I didn't respond verbally, I just did what he had told me. The energy trail wasn't as simple to make solid as he made it sound. After only a minute or two I had used up too much energy in the attempt and stopped. "Don't think it's going to work."

Whenever I concentrated on anything, the shoulder wound I had stolen from Hiei with the Ofuda began to throb. It was the one constant reminder of the Ofuda. And now, less and less when Hiei cancelled the effects of the Ofuda did the pain on my shoulder disappear. It was like it was becoming mine and Hiei no longer had control over whether or not the Ofuda worked in that instance. That somehow made me happy…whenever he momentarily stopped its power, I always wondered what use it had. But if I had his shoulder wound, I would see a use for it again.

"I think we're finished here," Hiei said quietly. I knew he was right in that we were done training, as neither of us really seemed like we wanted to do anything in the world of fighting that day, but I didn't want to leave and go home just yet.

"Can we stay here, though? Just for a little while?"

Hiei shrugged, indicating he didn't care. I sat down on the ground where I stood. The field was so pretty when it was dark out, black and purple, but as the sun was rising I saw it was just as gorgeous in the day. I was realizing each time we came here how different the time zone we were in was—it would still be dark at home, I knew, though it was nearly fully light out here. I felt like asking him where 'here' was, but somehow I didn't want to know. It might have lost its magic.

I laid back on the ground after a moment, and I looked over and up at Hiei, who seemed to be debating on finding a tree or staying next to me, and finally he sat down a foot or two from me. I smiled lightly and turned back to looking at the almost fully-lit sky. There weren't many clouds, and the sky was brighter than anywhere I'd ever seen. I began to think maybe we weren't even in human world anymore.

I didn't realize I was falling asleep until my body automatically reverted itself out of the transformation and the pain returned to bothering me on my arm. I shook the exhaustion from me and looked to Hiei. "Shall we?"

As we were heading back, I began to see, just by how happy I was to be with him made me, that he was quickly becoming the most important person in my life. He had been the center of it for a while now, but every day seemed to make me more attached to him.

_If he does end up leaving_, I thought sadly, _what will I do?_ I seemed to define myself now by what I did with him, not the life I led back in my hometown. It seemed unimportant and far away—this second life was better. More enjoyable. And I knew I belonged living this sort of life rather than the one I had been in before.

I was leaned on to his chest as always, my eyes open but not really looking at anything in particular, and I noticed for the first time how steady his heartbeat was. I recalled in the anime, in the Chapter Black saga, that after Yusuke found his demon blood that Kurama told him that demon hearts didn't beat in a conventional human sense.

"Hiei?"

He did his 'hn'-like question noise.

"Didn't Kurama say in Chapter Black that demon hearts don't beat like human hearts? 'Cause yours does."

He shrugged. "What is Chapter Black, a series in the show?"

I blinked. "Yeah, you know, the one about the tape Chapter Black."

"So I gathered. I wasn't familiar with the fact it was a saga." He sighed lightly. "I can't say I've ever watched the anime, so I wouldn't know if Kurama had said that, but if they inferred that he did it's just yet another instance in which the human author took liberty in changing reality."

I nodded. "Oh." And suddenly Hiei slowed, and I knew it hadn't been long enough for us to be home yet. I looked up, about to say his name, but then I caught sight of the large pack of traveling Escque below us as Hiei leapt across them.

"Are you up for a battle?" Hiei asked me.

I grinned. "Always."

The fight was short. I could already see a difference in my fighting skills, and no Escque was even able to scratch me.

There were about ten left when I felt Hiei flicker above me and into a tree. "What, are you being lazy?"

"Show me how fast you can kill all of them."

I blinked, then shrugged and sighed, shooting a large energy blast which incinerated he group instantly, and I slashed sideways with my arm to kill a last straggler who had conveniently been out of the way of the attack.

But as I turned to look back at Hiei, he was suddenly next to me, his sword drawn and barely missing touching my throat. I looked down at it without moving my head, then back to Hiei. "…What are you doing?"

"Why are you so insistent on trusting me?" he growled. His voice wasn't angry—it sounded like he was trying to make it sound like he was, but it was just confused. "Even now you persist on believing that I must have a reason for this if it's _me_ doing it." He narrowed his gorgeous crimson gaze at me. "If this had been anyone else you'd already feel hurt by the fact or you would have fought back. Why is it so different with me?"

I blinked. "I don't know," I replied after a moment. "I can't help who I trust."

"Of course you can," he snapped back. "So why did you choose me to trust, after never using even a mild form of the word in you entire existence?"

"I told you, I don't know."

"I should kill you. Right here, now."

I was surprised at his words, but again I thought immediately that he must have a reason. "Why?"

"Because…" He trailed off a moment at the end of the word, as if thinking on how to word it. "You'll only get in the way after this."

"Cheap excuse."

I felt the tip of his sword poke the skin on my throat lightly, and I decided no to crack any more sarcastic comments. "Truthfully," Hiei said, "it's because of what you drive me to do."

I studied him closely, but didn't reply and waited for him to continue. He didn't, and my legs felt weak, and I slowly began to bend them and crouch down in front of him to keep my balance. His sword never left my throat, but it didn't advance at my movement either.

"And what is that?"

He didn't respond. The look in his eyes still wasn't angry, but it looked like he genuinely was considering killing me. It barely surprised me. But I didn't slip into my 'I knew it was too good to be true' thoughts again. I still had undying trust in him.

Neither of us spoke. He held the sword at my throat, and I looked up at him without expression, though I felt an unexpected tear roll down from my right eye. I wasn't sad, I wasn't angry, and my constant He-must-have-a-reason philosophy never left my mind. So why was I crying?

"What are you waiting for?"

"Why aren't you fighting back?"

I stunned even myself with my next words. "…Because I love you."

He didn't reply, and I lowered my face so that my hair covered my eyes, not trying to get out of the way of his sword, and I felt it thinly slice the underneath of my chin as I leaned on to it without realizing. He hadn't moved it, it was my own movements. "Why are you waiting?" I was really crying now, as if attacked by some sort of guilt, and I could feel my shoulders moving, and tears were falling steadily onto my hand and down the contours of my face. I still wasn't sure why I was crying.

But then Hiei lowered his sword, and I heard it slide into its sheath.

"Just kill me."

And then, I felt his arms around me, and I tensed and scratched down his chest with my nails, feeling them draw blood. "Just kill me," I sobbed out again, but he never let go.

I loved him.

…Why was that so painful to admit?

"Please…"

We remained there, unmoving besides my crying for a long time. I don't know how long. It didn't take me long to lean onto him and enjoy his unexpected embrace.

It was so odd for me to be in his arms in that way, rather than him just carrying me. And yet…it was so natural.

I wasn't Chichiro then. He knew that. So why was he hugging me? Why was he acting like he cared?

…Did he?

My tears slowed and eventually stopped not long after I accepted his embrace. He still held me anyway, and it took me only a short while to realize he was sitting down in front of me with his arms only loosely around my shoulders, letting me lay against him.

It felt awkward in a way I didn't mind. I couldn't bring myself to look at him, and my eyes remained riveted on my black Converse All-Stars.

I lost track of time.

The Escque corpses around us had begun to decay rapidly after we killed them, and by that point they were all completely gone. No more questions as to the cleanup of the bodies.

I knew he didn't love me. Not in the sense of how I loved him. But he cared. At least it seemed he did—if he still didn't he sure was heading in that direction fast.

I don't remember loosing consciousness. But when I woke we were almost back at my house.

When he laid me in my bed, I watched him head back to my tree, which was quickly becoming _his_ tree, and I could barely see his expression in the darkness. I could see, however, that it was incredibly serious…thinking.

As with a few weeks before, the uplifted feeling I had toward him quickly switched and dragged me down instead, and I looked away from him and kicked off my shoes, deciding to sleep in my clothes and without covers.

My dreams weren't horrid that night. I didn't recall them either when I woke the next morning, but I knew they were still about Hiei. but they no longer haunted my consciousness when I slept—they had changed the torturous images around and become…somehow inviting.

Hiei was asleep when I opened my eyes. I watched him for a short while, then grinned as I noticed the smallest, most miniscule smile on his lips.

He woke shortly after I did, and we set off to train again. I felt a new sort of caring for him, and although I had used love for it the previous day, it seemed to fit something different this time…a word more like adoration.

But as with all things, my happiness would be short-lived.

And very soon I would get to know what the mind of a killer was really like.


	14. Sparring and Rifts

**Disclaimer:** Neither Hiei, nor Yu-Yu-Hakusho is mine.

**Claimer:** Chichiro is mine, Kaze is BritKit, Aria is FoxWitch. While not all the characters are mine, all writing, storylines and concepts in this fanfiction (Save any YYH references) are.

* * *

I was amazed with how quickly I got used to where we trained. I began to remember how long it took to get there, but I rarely watched the land pass and I didn't know the way. It was probably too far for me to remember anyway.

We wasted no time chatting or lounging around—as soon as we landed and Hiei let me down we began to spar.

Our fight led us up the mountain. Or, shall I say, Hiei herded me toward it, probably to rub that fighting-terrain thing in my face again.

As I dodged a kick from him, I found myself backed against the broad face of the mountainside—a section of it that failed to have a way for me to get out of the way of his next attack. I considered a moment, then reached over me and pressed my palm to the stone, with my fingers facings downward. Hiei's eyes narrowed for the shortest of times before he realized what I was planning on doing, and he growled as a huge explosion shattered the cliff face.

I shot energy from my fingertips to keep myself from being crushed, and I sprang out from beneath the rubble. Only because I was expecting attack, I was able to block his fist. Even the simple impact of his fist on my arm was powerful enough to make me wince, and it reminded me of how dangerous Hiei was. I knew he was still being easy on me in fighting—he had been since the beginning—and I could only imagine what it would be like to actually fight him.

I swung around with my left arm, gritting my teeth against the pain, and as it made contact with his other arm as he blocked, I felt the wound on my arm beginning to tear.

"That was reckless," Hiei commented with a smirk, meaning the cliff explosion.

I opened my left fist, getting a good grasp around his arm. "Not as reckless as this." I began to send energy into my palm, but Hiei realized what I was doing and yanked his arm upward, and I sailed over him, but I had anticipated this and thrust my palm outward as I flipped, shooting a trail of energy out at his back. I expected to see it hit him between the shoulder blades, but he was gone from the spot before any impact was made.

And then I heard his sword slide from his sheath, and the blade came slashing toward me. It grazed my stomach, slashing through my hoodie and shirt, but the actual cut was only about the size of a long, deep paper cut.

I swung my leg upward and hit to bottom of his hilt, sliding it through his fingers and knocking it from his hold. But he caught my foot, ignoring the loss of his sword, and pressed on the back of my ankle, just below my Achilles heel, in a way that somehow inflicted a huge amount of pain that shot upward through my leg, and I growled lightly, shooting a mini energy-ball from my fingertips.

He avoided it with ease, and then retrieved his sword. As he came at me with a stabbing motion rather than a slash like usual, and I had to turn and arch my torso backward to keep myself from being impaled. But then he took me by surprise, swinging his blade sideways along with my motion, and because he must have known I wasn't fast enough to dodge, he flipped the sword around so the blunt side caught me just below my ribs rather than me getting sliced in half. My breath was still knocked from me, and I sailed backward to ram into one of the various trees that were scattered along the base of the mountain.

I picked myself off the ground as quickly as my body allowed, and then, feeling myself start to get pissed, I decided to try again on summoning my energy sword. Before I even concentrated, I felt a hilt within my fingers, and I kicked off the tree and threw myself at Hiei, my new blade slamming against his, and when our swords hit we were both thrown backward by the force.

Hiei was able to pull his legs into a position so that he could catch himself against the trunk of a tree and attack again, but I was less orthodox and I fell onto my back, raising my sword to protect myself as Hiei brought his down at me. He was suspended in the air momentarily as our swords shoved against one another, the air around us crackling with energy, and then I sent a burst of my energy through my arms and was able to shove him off.

It seemed we were beginning to fight more seriously. I grinned. Now he was actually trying.

I leapt into the air, surprised by how far I up I was able to go, and I was also amazed that I wasn't afraid of the height. I arched my sword downward, but he raised his and they rammed together with a loud clash. Both of our blades were glowing with our energy, and the entirety of the mountainside now felt electric as our energies sparked. I felt a thrilling rush of adrenaline, egging me onward to continue, and when Hiei's sword pushed me backward I pulled my own back and thrust it forward.

Hiei sprang upward, and my blade barely missed his boot. For a moment he disappeared, and then I sensed him behind me, his sword coming at my back in a stabbing motion. I raised my arm and let myself fall sideways, his sword barely missing my ribs, coming between my arm and torso. I bent my right leg drastically so that I could bring my body down around the sword, ducking as Hiei's body went over me, and his blade immediately swung around again.

Our swords met, and the sparks as the blades crossed began to form in small shards of our energy, solidified, and one of them made a small slash on the right side of my face. The pain only made me want to fight more.

It was almost a lust I had, this urge to fight—like I had something to prove.

And then our swords both rang with a strange sound, almost like they were singing in unison, and a huge black lightning slash whipped outward from where they met. I noticed then that all around us was glowing yellow with energy rather than red and blue like our own specific colors. The black lightning strike curled suddenly, wrapping around the place of contact of the blades like a long-fingered hand, becoming a large electric ball before the sound of the swords' singing increased enough to make my eardrums bleed, and then there was a huge cracking noise that was followed by a blinding light.

When the light cleared, both of our swords were broken where they had met, and the snapped-off sections of them were reeling through the air and away from us. "What just happened!" I asked, surprised, but Hiei just smirked.

"It seems our energies are too evenly matched. The blades weren't strong enough to told that high amount of demon energy."

I blinked. "Demon energy? But I'm not transformed."

"Never doubt what you are just because of your form." He chuckled lightly, in a mocking tone. "Do you think you're human right now?"

"Don't insult me!" I snapped back. "Of course not!"

"Enough." And suddenly he was in front of me—I had barely seen his form waver before he was directly before me, his fist raised. "I much prefer fighting over talking." His fist caught me square in the center of my face, and I sneezed as the bridge of my nose was crushed slightly. I could smell blood, but I figured my nose was probably bleeding.

I swung my arm around and my knuckles found his neck. He growled as we both went flying back. I had never felt so close to being as powerful as he—never before had we been so evenly matched.

Hiei flipped and landed, sliding backward. He dove for his broken sword, grabbing the hilt, and before I registered that he had recreated the end with his energy, he was in the air and diving at me.

I would have summoned energy to shoot the sword or Hiei, but then there was a sharp pain in my chest. Not the traditional kind of pain, but more like something that was purely mental or spiritual, not physical. I winced, and I think I must have cried out, because Hiei almost pulled up, but didn't. I raised my arm to block his blade, too distracted by the sudden pain to realize how foolish that was.

The sword cut into my arm with ease, nearly halfway and right up next to my bone, but for some reason I was barely able to notice it. The sudden shocking pain in my chest was gone, and Hiei tore his sword from my arm, staring at me as if expecting a reaction, but I couldn't focus on him. The pain came in another wave in my ribcage, and then I looked up at Hiei quickly, my arm still raised from blocking. "We have to go. Now."

"Do you even realize what you just did?" Hiei growled, his eyes still riveted on my arm.

"It doesn't matter. There's something wrong back home. Really wrong." The pain was coming in consistent waves now, and something told me that all of the rifts I had seen so far were children compared to usual rifts…I thought perhaps another was opening then, and that was what I was sensing.

Hiei studied me for a moment, then nodded. He picked me up swiftly. Noting my torn shirt, from when his blade had nearly gotten me before, he said, "You aren't going to need that anymore. Take it off."

I blinked, then twitched. "What the hell is that supposed to mean!"

Hiei glared at me. "Don't act like you think I'm a human. It has nothing to do with what you think it does—and besides, you'll still have your jacket—" ("Hoodie," I corrected in a mumble, but he ignored me.) "—on. It isn't like you'll be completely shirtless."

I growled lightly, but finally agreed, and used my un-cut arm to tear off the bottom half of my shirt. The only clue that it was gone was that I could see the skin that had been torn slightly in the cut on my hoodie. Hiei slowed, leaping off the branch he had just been on and landed on the ground. He let me stand, and I blinked. "I said we had to hurry," I said in a rushed voice.

"We won't need to hurry to anything if you bleed to death," he snapped back, snatching my shirt fabric from my hand and tying it around my arm, tight. I hadn't even gathered how deep it had cut until then, but I still didn't really mind the pain. It was there, yes, but I didn't take much notice.

And then Hiei began to head toward home again, though with each passing day that human place lost more and more 'home' meaning. I didn't know what I considered home now, but it wasn't there.

Within minutes I felt weakened. I would have thought it was because of loss of blood, had the waves of pain on my chest not been increasing. I looked up at Hiei, but quickly forgot what I had planned on saying. He was sweating, and his eyes looked like he was almost…afraid. Not that he was, but like he was close. "Hie—" I cut off just before his name finished spilling my lips, because my eyes had slid sideways to look past his face and at the sky. There was the largest rift I'd ever seen tearing open, black as nothingness. Because I was paying attention more than normal, I felt us cross into the human world, because the air was thicker and notably different as soon as we passed through a dark forest. The rift extended across dimensions—it never faltered, and it only widened when we passed into the human world. Demons were spilling from it and screaming, almost gleefully, and screeching.

I felt almost as though I could retch as my eyes found a plane in the sky, directly below the rift.

Humans couldn't see demons. Or rifts.

And as demons fell onto the wings and top of the plane, I watched with horrified eyes as it was somehow raised and sucked into the void of the fissure between worlds.

"H-Hiei…did you see that?"

"We don't have time to be paying attention to what casualties have already fallen. We have to return and prevent m—" But then he made a verbal protest to illustrate pain, and his word was torn in half. I immediately snapped my eyes to his face, worried, but he was wincing, and his eyes were closed. And then I saw the demon behind him; I couldn't see where he'd been injured, and I didn't feel the Ofuda's effect telling me either, but I knew that the demon had hurt Hiei. And I was overcome with bitter rage just at the fact. I shot the soldier with my energy, but I quickly realized we were falling toward the ground.

Hiei was able to catch himself just before we hit the ground, but as soon as he landed in a crouch position, his eyes rolled backward and he collapsed sideways. "Hiei!" I cried, already free from his hold, but just as I was going to see if he was conscious, I felt something rip into my back, and I was unable to cry out, my breath cut short. I summoned my energy sword without concentration, and I whipped around and slashed around my back and I heard the demon behind me scream, and his body thumped as it fell to the ground. I spun and lanced through another, but my attention was still focused on Hiei. I had never seen him hurt besides when he injured his shoulder before I made the Ofuda, and I was too worried to even realize he had still disengaged the Ofuda's power before he was wounded.

"Hiei," I tried again, slashing through a demon distractedly, and he opened his eyes into narrow slits. I was relieved, but I didn't let myself get too excited. "Where did he hurt you?"

"It did something to my spine," Hiei growled back with a wince. "It was just shock, don't worry about it. I'll be fine in a moment."

I studied his eyes for truth, but before I decided whether what he said was real or not, I sensed a larger group of demons coming toward us. At least they had mainly been coming from behind me rather than behind Hiei.

I threw my sword like a javelin, and it sliced into three demons, pinning them together, but I had no time to relish the pain on their faces, as I shoved both my hands forward and threw out a huge energy trail, no doubt the largest I had ever been able to create.

And then I felt Hiei moving with my spiritual sense, and I obliterated the rest of the demons in front of me at the moment before I looked at him. He had been able to get into a crouching position, but it looked like he would have to struggle to get any further.

But then his eyes suddenly went blank for a moment, and when they returned to normal it looked as though he had lost awareness of his pain, and he stood, turning and shooting a fireball at an on-coming demon. With his back toward me, I could see a long slash down his back, which had torn his shirt, and then, directly beneath his shoulder blades and over his spine was a strange wound that looked almost like he had been stabbed by a few swords lined up next to each other. I winced at the sight of it, but again had no time to spend thinking about it, as the line of demons was consistent.

The rift was leaking demons and Escque everywhere. They were working together, the Escque walking toward the humans they sensed, and the demons keeping us busy so we would not stop their corpse-like allies.

"Hiei," I growled, "we have to kill the Escque. The demons are just a—"

"Distraction," he finished, his voice level. I marveled at how well he was able to make himself used to the pain, and how quickly. "I know. But they're a damn good distraction, and they're powerful. We have to worry about them first."

"But the Escque—!"

"They can wait."

I was still worried about Hiei. Just because he was acting like he wasn't in pain didn't mean he was okay, and with the Ofuda being useless if he chose it to be, I felt helpless.

I shot an energy trail at the next group of demons, and I felt my heel touch Hiei's. We were both being forced inward by the demons. I didn't allow myself to be backed up any closer next to Hiei, as I didn't want to further worsen his injury. I put a hand on Hiei's shoulder, and growled, "Take some of my energy."

"Hn. Why?"

"You need it, and don't you dare deny it."

"I'll be fine without—"

"Damn it, if you aren't going to let the Ofuda work, at least let me give you some of my energy!"

Hiei was silent a moment, but then I felt energy escaping my hand and knew Hiei had listened. "Stubborn as me," Hiei commented lightly, and then he moved away from me with what seemed like new motivation, summoning an energy sword and slashing through the demons.

As I sensed him switch attacks to the Fist of the Mortal Flame, I wondered if he was too weak to try the Black Dragon Wave.

And then the demons suddenly stopped coming at us. I was surprised into stopping, but Hiei wasted no time and took the opportunity to kill off about a hundred more as they were just standing around. _Kurama to the rescue again?_ I wondered, as the demons started crawling back toward the rift.

"Now," Hiei called back to me, "attack them with everything you have left!"

I blinked over at him, but he was taking off the bandage on his right arm. I felt my pulse quicken, and for some reason rather than anticipating seeing the Dragon in real life, I almost dreaded it. Almost. I gathered my energy into my hands, shooting at the retreating flocks of demons.

And then, I heard Hiei call, "_Black Dragon Wave_!" The sky was immediately as dark as the rift, and black lightning shook the earth, and then there was a piercing, horrifyingly beautiful scream as the dragon was freed from his arm. I watched it as it tore into the group of demons, incinerating them; the air around us, and everywhere I could see, rippled with Hiei's energy. Then, there was a new thrust of energy from him, blue this time, and it wrapped around the dragon and increased its size as it destroyed all of its victims before it before finally curling upward and slamming into the rift, splitting and crackling sideways along the entire length, destroying every demon visible to me, even those I had not killed on my side.

And then the Dragon faded away, screaming a single last time before it disintegrated into the sky like it had the demons in its path.

Hiei leaned onto one of his knees in a crouch before his legs could fail. I looked over at him, amazed at the attack, amazed that he had been able to do the attack when he was injured, and amazed at how much it had thrilled me to see the Dragon.

"Are you okay?"

"I'll be fine," he responded, his voice still level. "But unfortunately I don't think there's any way in hell I'll be getting you back to your humans today."

I grinned easily, just glad he was okay. I think someone could have told me that my human family was being tortured and murdered and I still would have been too relieved to care. "That's fine." I drew in a breath to sigh, just then noticing how heavily I was breathing and how rubbery my legs felt.

I sat backward—if you could call it that, as the only reason I had sat was to keep myself from falling—and brought my legs up into V-shapes, resting my arms on my raised knees and leaning my head onto them. "Hey, Hiei?"

He made his hn-like question noise, but I realized this time it was because he was too tired to muster anything else.

"This…wasn't the only rift like this, was it?"

"…No."

"There will be more…exactly like this, won't there?"

"Yes."

I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the fact that my entire body hurt. After all, it was nothing compared to Hiei's wound and exhaustion, and I wasn't about to pity myself over a few scratches.

"Can we…Is the world savable?" I tried to keep my voice normal, but it was thick with signs of how tired I was.

"I don't know." I was able to open my eyes and look at him as he spoke, but he was leaning against a pair of demon bodies, his eyes closed. The pose would have struck me as funny before, but then I just felt the oddest sense of need for Hiei. "Probably not."

I smiled at that, and I closed my eyes again. He was so blunt it was almost humorous.

"I need a better name for you than 'Ningen'," he said suddenly. I didn't even try to look at him, for my eyelids refused to obey me.

"Mmm? Like what?"

"I don't know. But Ningen isn't a name."

I smiled lightly. "You had no problem calling me that before."

"Hn." There was silence, and then he said, "What do you think of Ketsueki?"

"What does that mean?"

"Blood."

"A little dark, don't you think?"

"Maybe. But by your tone you don't mind it."

"Yeah…but it's a mouthful for me. Maybe just…Ketsue."

"Hn."

I realized that anyone else who had tried to find a good name for me before had failed miserably, and he found one that suited me on his first try. "Any particular inspiration for that one?"

"It was Chichiro's last name."

I opened my eyes and blinked at him. "She had one? And it meant…blood? Was that a self-given last name or something?"

"No. You just have to realize demon names aren't like human names. We are given them for reasons." I knew what me meant without him further explaining, seeing as his last name was Jaganshi. Their last names were matched to them for certain things, like Hiei's jagan. I could only wonder what the reason for Chichiro's last name was.

I yawned, suddenly wanting something to lean back against. "Uhm…you think we could both find some way of gettin' somewhere before we pass out?"

"We are somewhere," Hiei growled back, his voice soft and tired, but he still had enough energy to remain snide.

"I mean somewhere less…in the middle of no where."

"…No. We'll find somewhere else _after_ we pass out."

I grinned. "Oh, yeah, that makes sense."

I raised my head and looked over the expanse of rotting demon bodies, though it did not stretch as long as it would have had Hiei not incinerated the rest. I turned back to Hiei as I sensed him go unconscious, and I fiddled around with the idea of what to do in my mind. I knew I should rest, but I felt so alive, like there was something I had to do. I glared up at the rift, which was still making crackling noises and spouting black lightning, but no demons freed themselves from the demon world.

Hiei had said there would be more rifts like this one. Exactly like this one. And if this was going to become a consistent, every-other-day ordeal, like fighting the smaller amounts of Escque before, than I would need to train much harder. Hiei had an excuse for not fighting to his full potential—the demon had caught him off guard before the battle even began. But me? I was fine when it started. And Hiei still had to save me like always, even though he was the one who had been injured.

But my thoughts were suddenly slow and lagging, too tired to continue, and I pulled myself over to lay next to Hiei against the demon bodies—which were the only thing visible for me to prop myself up on—and I was knocked out as soon as I was positioned.

* * *

It was just starting to get light out when something woke me up. I knew I had been out a long while, as it was about to start getting light when I had passed out, but I felt rested. So I had probably been unconscious for a day.

I had the most annoying crook in my neck, and I cracked it sideways and opened my eyes. I was still pretty tired, but not as beat as yesterday. Hiei wasn't next to me, but I had no doubts he'd be back soon. I had no clue where he'd be otherwise, perhaps scouting the area or maybe he found a comfortable tree to rest in.

As I willed my body to move—it was incredibly limp, and it didn't really seem like it wanted to obey me—and I struggled for my eyelids to move so I could look upward. When they finally decided to allowed me to look ahead of myself, I saw the cause for my waking.

There was a human female in front of me, an older woman, looking at me with concern and almost a mild sense of fear. I didn't move—my body remained in the same position as it had been when I had woken save my head. She wasn't threatening, and I saw no reason to try and shift pose.

"What?" I growled, realizing after I said it in a snide tone that said 'What are you looking at?' even though I had left out the last four words how much like Hiei I sounded.

"Are you alright, dear? You look terrible!" I didn't respond, and I struggled to further sit up, and I realized I was against a mesh-and-wood fence rather than the demons from before, meaning Hiei had probably moved me before they decayed and I was left with nothing to lean on. "Have you been in a fight?" she continued before I replied.

I leaned on to my knees, glaring up at her. It wasn't an intentional glare, but I knew it looked like I was glaring at her. I was too lazy to shift my expression to one more welcoming; after all, I didn't exactly _feel_ welcoming. I noted that she leaned back slightly when my body came the tiniest bit closer to her when I moved, and I had to suppress a smirk.

"You can talk to me, I'm only trying to help."

I closed my eyes and shifted my arms, wincing as I recalled the wound Hiei had given me in sparring the previous day, and I looked over at my arm and the black fabric wrapped around it. The cloth was stiff with blood, and the wound had begun bleeding again.

The woman before me seemed to have just noticed it, and her hands flew to her mouth. "Oh, you're in horrid shape. You need proper medical attention."

I smiled at her; it pleased me to see a human who could so easily care about someone she didn't know. "I'll be fine." I realized as I spoke again that I had dried blood at the corner of my mouth and there was a trail to my chin as well. It must have been from sparring, because I didn't recall being injured in a way that would have caused it during the actual battle. Actually, I couldn't recall being injured at all when fighting besides when the Escque cut me across my back that single time. I wondered how bad off I look, and I could understand why she looked so horrified.

"Nonsense, I'll call an ambulance. And if you won't let me do that, at least let me bandage you up."

I smiled again, lightly, and reached up to take the hand she was offering me.

"Touch her and I'll cut your arm off."

I stopped the motion of my arm and looked behind me at Hiei, who was standing roughly ten feet behind the fence I was leaned up against. He was glaring at the human woman, his words directed at her, and his hands were gathered into fists at his sides. He wasn't wearing his cloak, but he hadn't had it on since the beginning of sparring—he'd lost it somewhere in our practice fight.

"It's fine, Hiei," I called to him, "she's just a human. She's not a threat."

"Who said I thought she was?" Hiei growled back, his eyes averting toward me.

"Then why…" I sighed then, realizing Hiei's naturally suspicious nature and stopped my question, realizing his last sentence was just to make me stop suspecting. He really had seen her as a threat.

The woman was looking over at Hiei now, her eyes wide again. I could tell her mind was saying that if he was cut up, too, and making threats that he must have been the one who hurt me. I struggled to my feet without her help, as she was too distracted anyway, and I looked toward Hiei. He wasn't as tense as when I first saw him, now that I'd assured him the human was no threat, and then I averted my gaze back to the woman again. "Do you have bandages?"

"Yes…at the house." I looked where she pointed, at a house about twenty feet to my left. I hadn't realized we were so close to a human's home. "You can use them."

I smiled lightly. "That'd be nice, thank you."

Hiei followed us back, and I had to convince him to come in the house with me. "You need bandaging, too," I reminded him, as I saw no bandages on him yet.

"Hn." After the human had switched my soaked-through shirt cloth for clean white bandages and a stinging cream, I bandaged Hiei. His back wound was worse than I originally thought, but he didn't grimace a single time and he didn't seem to mind the pain. I was distracted enough by my worry for him that I barely noticed the great opportunity bandaging him brought on, since he had to take his shirt off for it.

After finishing up with Hiei, I went into the woman's bathroom and washed my face off. The conversation between us all had ended outside, and so far she'd said nothing more save directing me to the bandages. I didn't know her name, she didn't know ours, and I figured it would stay that way. I was just glad she didn't want us to explain.

But as I finished cleaning the blood off my face and arms with a wet towel, I heard her in the kitchen talking to Hiei and thought, _Too soon spoken._

"Where did you get all these cuts? You're both in such horrible shape."

I didn't hear anything for a short time, but as I hung the towel up and went back through the open door I heard Hiei say, "Hn."

I was pretty sore, now, as if before washing off my face and arms I was too exhausted to care about the pain, and now, cleaned up, I was reminded of it.

"Ready?" was my greeting when I got into the kitchen, and I nodded at Hiei.

"Are you sure you don't want me to—"

"We can take care of ourselves," I told the human. "Thank you, though."

"But…you're so young," she said softly. Hiei didn't appear to be in the 'so young' category. He looked like he was in his twenties, despite his hundreds of years in existence. Besides, I figured she didn't mention him in that instance as well because of his rugged appearance. It would be hard for someone who didn't know him to worry about him with how well he handled pain and the like.

"I'll be fine." I directed a low wave at her as me and Hiei walked out, and as we reached the road I turned to him. "Are you going to wipe her memory?"

"No. I see no need—she won't tell anyone. Her mind told me that. And if she someday decides to, it won't matter."

I nodded, and I wondered how we were going to get back. Well, more like how I was going to get home. Hiei could easily by himself, but I doubted he was recovered enough for it to be possible or safe for him to try and carry me back.

"I gave enough energy from my jagan to keep your humans too distracted to notice your absence for a few days."

I sighed with mild relief as he said it. "Oh, good. I was wondering about that." I smiled. "I didn't really want to deal with their nagging when I got back." I yawned and stretched without flexing my arms enough to cause pain from my wounds from sparring or the slash on my back from the day before. "Which way?" I looked down the road both ways, but Hiei was turning to walk back to where I had been when I first woke up.

"While you were still sleeping I found a good place to rest until we can make the trip back to your home."

I blinked, turning to follow him into the woods behind the woman's house. "Where are we, anyway? Do you know?"

"Not the exact location, no, but we aren't in your country."

"We're not? Where are we, then? That lady didn't sound like she had an accent."

"I'd assume somewhere in Canada. Again, I don't know. I can only assume."

"Wow…we're farther away than I thought, then."

"Exactly why I found somewhere for us to recover for a day or two before we try to get back."

"What about the rift?"

I looked up through the trees, suddenly remembering it, but the sky was blank.

"It closed itself a few hours before you woke. It will re-open soon, but hopefully we will have had enough time to heal and regain our strength before it does."

As the trees began to thin, I could see the land drop off drastically at the edge of what I assumed was a canyon. When we neared the edge, I saw it wasn't the small ravine like at Letchworth…it almost resembled the Grand Canyon.

"It's across this canyon, and that I've found it would be easier for me to carry you across than for us to try and find a way around it."

"Are you sure? I mean, you don't have too much strength right now…I don't want you to hurt yourself any further."

"I can understand your worry, but don't. You seem to consistently forget that I'm a demon. A single wound may be enough to keep me from carrying you the entire way back, but it isn't bad enough to keep me from much else."

I nodded, and when we had crossed he let me down, and I followed him to a large over-lay on the rock-s structure. It wasn't deep enough to be called a cave, but it wasn't small enough to be called a dent, either.

"I doubt any human will be able to find their way here to bother us." I looked over at Hiei while he was talking. "It's just secluded enough that the only ningens we'd see here would probably be hikers and they wouldn't pose much of a distraction to healing."

I couldn't see what human _would_ pose a threat or distraction, but I shrugged off the idea with a sigh, leaning against the back wall of the mini-cave. "Hey, Hiei?"

He just looked sideways at me.

"Am I ever going to be able to meet Kurama and the others?"

"Maybe. But not now, with the rifts at such a dangerously high level. You meeting them would require either them coming to Ningenkai, or us going to demon world, neither of which we can afford at the moment."

"M'kay."

I zoned out after that. Hiei still seemed to be tired—after all, he had used his strongest attack when he was already at low energy and hurt—and he slept soon after.

Nothing held my attention, but I had slept for too long for me to fall unconscious again.

Finally I retreated from the mini-cave and went above it, as it was positioned beneath a large rock formation.

It was hot out there, and it reminded me briefly of when I had lived in California before I moved back to New York. I sat down, looking across the canyon. It was huge, bigger than I had first guessed by just glancing. It extended as far as I could see, and it was wide.

I decided to use the time to train. After going through three different katas and beginning a fourth that I couldn't remember past halfway through, I sighed and stopped. I was able to summon my energy sword now without issue, and if I decided to re-absorb it I could easily. My energy balls and long trails of energy were already almost expert, so none of them posed much of a challenge or need to focus on them.

_I could show you something new,_ came a familiar voice in my mind, but it wasn't Hiei's. It was Chichiro's.

I raised an eyebrow. _Yeah? Like what?_

_It requires quite a bit of energy…if you think you're up to it._

_I am. Just tell me what it is._

_Kurayami Sakebigoe_, she told me, but it remained un-translated.

_And that is…?_

_More powerful than anything you've ever done or seen._

That description satisfied me well enough, and I nodded. _Alright, how do I do it, then?_

As she described it, I began to gather all of my energy into my chest. She was in her spiritual form next to me, and she told me to continue increasing the amount of energy until I almost thought I'd pass out, but then she continued and I was instructed to let it go to every corner of my body and be shot from every point, like a Black Dragon Wave, only from everywhere on my body, not just my arm. _Is that…safe?_

_Only if you aren't strong enough to handle it,_ she mocked.

I twitched, and began to send my energy back into my body, but just as I was about to call the attack and release I mainly from my arms, Hiei was suddenly next to me, and he pressed his palm against my side and sent a small shockwave of energy into my body, which made me stop, flinching. "Hey, what was that for?" I snarled at him, glaring sideways.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he snapped back.

"Chichiro was showing me a new—"

"No, she was making you almost kill yourself! If you had tried that attack now you would have."

I blinked, suddenly glad for the minor pain on my side that was ebbing away. "…What?"

"Even I couldn't do that attack without probably killing myself. It's too strong."

"…What does it do?"

"Stops all magic in Ningenkai."

"All magic in…for how long?"

"I don't know. It's never been used, even in my generation. It's too reckless an attack. That I know of, all of the users at any times before have all died. The attack requires enough energy to equal an entire life force, and neither one of us can expel that much without dying."

The fact that Hiei couldn't do the attack was enough for me to never try again. "Then…" I twitched. "Damn it, Chichiro, trying to kill me again?" I glared at her spiritual form, but she was smirking easily.

_Oh, come now, Hikari, I can't help it. It's my nature._

If Hiei could hear and see her, he didn't show it, and he flickered from view.

_Why are you so insistent on staying with him?_ she asked me in a low, disgusted voice. _He killed you._

"You mean he killed _you_," I corrected, looking at her oddly. "Or…are you saying I'm Chichiro and not you? 'Cause that would be ridiculous."

_Hn. You'll just have to find out. But you still haven't answered me._

_Because I love him,_ I said telepathically, uncomfortable with saying it out loud again.

_Why, though, Hikari? Why do you persist?_

_Why not?_ I replied breezily. _It isn't hurting anyone for me to love him._

_Save yourself and myself,_ she growled back. _But you're right…We're both expendable. Just don't fool yourself by thinking he'll ever return your caring._

_I don't,_ I responded quietly. _I wouldn't expect that from him._

_But you think he cares about you._ I denied it, but Chichiro continued on. _Don't deny—you think he cares. Fool. Why would he care about you?_

_I don't know…but the things he does…_

_Are just his duties to you as an ally_, she finished, killing off what I had planned on saying. _He doesn't care for you and never will. He only stays for me._

It was a painful thing to hear, but I knew it was true. At least, I thought it was. Chichiro could so easily manipulate me back then.

_And even though you know the bitter truth you still want to stay with him. You still want to love him._

_Love can be one-sided,_ I replied, my voice cold and hurt. I knew I would have better been able to hide my emotion had we been speaking out loud. _Just because he'll never love me back doesn't mean I have to try and kill my own feelings._

_Hn. Fool._

I sat down and sighed heavily, and I sensed Chichiro fade and go dormant again in my mind.

Below me, I could sense that Hiei was still awake. And I had the slightest of suspicions that he had been listening to the conversation, but I wasn't about to throw around accusations.

I would have thought that it would be hard to care for someone you didn't believe cared back…it wasn't. At least, not in the sense I meant. I thought it would have been like when you saw someone at school when you were in elementary school you wanted to be friends with, but they didn't return the desire and you became enemies off a child's duel. But it almost felt like I wanted to love him more when I believed he didn't love or care about me back.

Sighing again, I stood and walked down to him, sitting next to him in the mini-cave, but I avoided meeting the fleeting glance he gave me.

I was suddenly tired. With how awake I had been only minutes before, I had to wonder what triggered it, but I felt my eyelids drooping, and then I slid away into the gentle bliss of nothing-filled sleep.

At least, nothing-filled until I began to dream. And the horrid ones had returned. The ones I couldn't remember when I woke, but that trapped me in sleep and made me want to die when I saw them…the ones Hiei could see and refused to tell.

Hiei woke me some time after it was dark out. I was freezing for some reason, but I realized as soon as I gathered that my body was hot that it was my spiritual sense that was making me cold. I could tell by the look in his ruby orbs that there was something wrong…worse off than usual. "Is there another rift?" I asked, and he nodded, reaching out a hand to help me stand up. I took it, but as soon as our hands linked I suddenly recalled Chichiro's words and was unable to look at him any longer.

He noted the fact, but he didn't comment on it, and instead said, "It's larger than the last."

I automatically looked at him at those words, staring. "What? How can _any_ rift be larger than the other?"

"Just follow me."

I watched him walk out of the mini-cave, and I followed after briefly pausing after he was out of my sight.

When I got outside, I wished I had remained where I had been.

The rift Hiei had mentioned was nearly the same place as the last, only slightly wider, but I could sense the difference. It must have been longer, for I couldn't see where it ended, but my senses told me it was many, many more miles off than the one from before.

There were demons strewn across the canyon ground, covering near every inch, and they were still falling from the rift, and crawling up the walls of the canyon as well.

I stared at the countless numbers of soldiers, my legs feeling weak, and I almost felt exhausted just looking at them all.

"Great…another day of this."

Hiei looked at me from the corner of his eyes. "You ready?"

"As much as I'll ever be," I sighed, the words sounding familiar, like deja vu.

Hiei slashed through a demon as it crawled up the face of the rock formation we were on, and I noticed that I had attackers of my own. It seemed we wouldn't have to go down, after all, as I'd originally thought.

After about two minutes it became repetitive and easy to kill off the demons as I found my rhythm, but it was too time-consuming, and the demons were scaling the walls and getting closer to the top at the edge of the canyon sides. Closer to escaping and getting to the humans.

But then I was unable to pay attention to the demons, as an entity screamed and tore itself from the rift, rearing its ugly horse-skull-like head and shrieking again. Soon after it was followed by another, black rather than white. Within thirty seconds there were seven entities, all screeching and making their way toward the edge of the canyon.

Hiei had to fight for some time to kill one. And I didn't even want to think what would happen if I tried to kill one, especially not with all these demons and Escque to worry about, and with Hiei injured…

I could only gape at the entities as their simple presence made the earth shake and the sky crackle with energy. I saw Hiei turn to look at them as well from the corner of my eyes, and I could feel myself shivering. _So this is what sent my demon sense all out of whack,_ I thought, then grimaced as the second entity reared its head again and screamed. It felt as though my eardrums were shattering, but I didn't bother to check if they were bleeding, my eyes focused on the black entity, as it randomly decided we were its target rather than the humans as the rest of the entities shot off toward the nearest humans they sensed. "…Oh, we're so screwed."

* * *

**Authoress's Note:** Sorry for the cliff-hanger. For once it wasn't intentional. ...Okay, so it was. But I'll redeem myself for it in the next chapter. More action, angst and "squee"-able sentimental moments to come.


	15. Awakenings and Murder

**Disclaimer:** Neither Hiei, nor Yu-Yu-Hakusho is mine.

**Claimer:** Chichiro is mine, Kaze is BritKit, Aria is FoxWitch. While not all the characters are mine, all writing, storylines and concepts in this fanfiction (Save any YYH references) are.

* * *

_It felt as though my eardrums were shattering, but I didn't bother to check if they were bleeding, my eyes focused on the black entity, as it randomly decided we were its target rather than the humans as the rest of the entities shot off toward the nearest humans they sensed. "…Oh, we're so screwed."_

The horse-like comparison kind of faded as it got closer. Yes, from a far it did have a similar structure to a horse skull, but as it neared I could see large tusks protruding from its face the same color as its black body, and its nose was pointed at the end almost like a beak.

I still couldn't see eyes in its sunken sockets, but sight was obviously not an issue. The entity twisted midair and shot upward, then shoving itself at us with elevated speed due to the increase in distance to come at us. I began to gather energy into my hands, but I felt a strong arm wrap around my torso and I was pulled backward and out of the way just before I released it and the entity came down upon me. "Don't be a fool," Hiei muttered to me, removing his arm from around me. "If it were that easy to kill an entity, it wouldn't have taken me so long before." I recalled he had taken around twenty minutes at the fight in the city to do away with the creature. "Never attack it head on, Ningen. It would be foolish to think you could match its strength."

"'Ningen'?" I asked with a grin. "Thought you were going to call me Ketsue."

Hiei smirked. "Momentary lapse."

My grin widened. I could tell if he was ever to have a serious conversation with me and didn't find 'Ningen' fitting he planned on calling me 'Ketsue' or 'Ketsueki', but for now Ningen would remain my call name. I didn't mind in the least, for some reason. It seemed to have lost its meaning as 'human' and become an actual nickname.

"Right."

Then my smile faded as the entity swung around and rocketed toward us again, screeching. I felt blood trickling down my face; my ears had become incredibly sensitive.

Out of the blue my jeans were looser, and I realized I had transformed again unknowingly, and I yanked them upward and sprang back as the entity roared past. I tore another strip off the remains of my shirt and used it as a temporary belt, very glad with my lack-of-shirt to have a thing for wearing hoodies all the time.

I watched as Hiei sprang off the ledge of the canyon and dove at the entity from the side, a black energy sword in his hand, but he flickered from view as the entity turned to shoot its neck outward at him, and he was immediately behind it. His sword slashed down the back of its neck, and it screeched, rounding on him.

I considered summoning an energy sword of my own, but somehow I figured a sword made of steel wouldn't make much of an impact compared to Hiei's, which was completely genuine energy. So I put my arms parallel to each other and threw energy from my hands, into its turned brow. It moved at the last moment, and it pulled its head around so that my blast caught its left eye socket. I blinked as it suddenly paused, rock solid, as if someone had a giant controller and had pressed 'pause'.

When it moved I had barely registered before it slammed into me, spreading its huge jaws to nearly straight-aligned, and I felt strangely-shaped teeth dig into my body, mainly just below my ribs and my legs.

"Ketsue," I heard Hiei shout, and I wasn't distracted enough by the pain this time to notice that he had called me his newly-dubbed name rather than Ningen, "brace yourself!"

And then the jaws wrapped around me trembled as the entity shrieked, its bottom jaw dropping off from beneath me, and I was momentarily suspended, its teeth still pierced into my body. As it began to turn its head again to attack Hiei, I pressed onto its top jaw and ripped myself from its fangs with only a single wince. Then I realized I was falling very rapidly. "Shit," I hissed, biting my lip, and the entity screamed above me as I was falling midair, I assume because Hiei was attacking it.

Hiei caught me just before I slammed to the ground, and he released me as soon as he caught me, letting me stand on the ground, and immediately he was gone again, leaping upward and swinging his sword at the entity.

I turned as the flow of Escque and demons began to come toward me, and I twitched _Not now,_ I thought angrily. _Not fucking now._ I raised my arms and gathered a huge amount of energy into my hands, throwing it outward. It must have killed off a few hundred demons. I shot another trail of energy, kicking off an Escque that was attacking me from the ground. "I don't have _time_ for you bastards!" I shouted, chucking off a few large energy balls. Not taking the time to watch the demon body parts cascade upon their still-coming living comrades, I threw myself at the wall of the canyon and began springing up by protrudes in the rock to the top.

I shot the entity, avoiding its face, as I realized that it was somehow absorbing energy through its non-existent eyes. That's why Hiei had told me not to attack it from its direct front. As my attack grazed what I assumed would be its ribs, it made a snarling-like noise, the first sound that didn't resemble a scream, and it lunged at me. I dodged it this time, leaping upward and landing in-between its eye sockets against its skull, and I shot an energy trail downward, shooting through both jaws—I saw the remnants of the energy dig into the canyon floor and burn out a few demons below me when I stopped sending energy and looked through the hole I had left in its face.

"Get off it!" Hiei suddenly shouted to me, and I didn't stop to ask, leaping backward behind it, as something told me to still not to get in front of it. I slid down its back almost like I was using a nonexistent snowboard across its hide. I have to admit it was incredibly fun. But when I reached the next arch of its back and stopped sliding, I realized it was turning its ugly head to attack me again. I sprang off it narrowly, throwing myself sideways, and its jaws clamped down on itself. It screeched, a huge electric wave shooting through its body as its teeth linked with itself, and I was blown back about fifty feet just by its aura.

Stumbling to my feet, I saw Hiei attack it with his Fist of the Mortal Flame, attacking mainly just behind its head where its skull connected to its neck.

"Back off, Hiei!" I called to him, aiming my hands, and sent out a huge blast of energy. Hiei flipped backward, using the entity to kick off, and my energy sliced into its neck at the back. By positioning, if it had a spine I just severed it.

Its head fell limply forward and the entity began to fall.

As with every prideful gesture in a fight, my growing arrogant smile was cut off as I sensed something behind me. I sprang upward, flipping backwards, and I landed on the neck of another entity, a white one this time. It brought its tail around to whip me off, but I pressed my hand to its flesh, making an electric shock version of my attack. My skin burned just by touching the mane strip along its back and tail, and I had to concentrate to keep my hand there rather than recoiling from the stinging pain. It felt like acid was seeping into my hand, and I could quickly see I was going to loose use of it—for how long was unclear to me. The electric shock seemed to feed itself, and I began to feel my energy being yanked from my body faster. Self sustaining attack, only it needed my energy to do so. Bloody wonderful. However, fairly soon it lost its ability and the entity shrieked half-heartedly, its call fading as it began to fall forward.

I leapt off its dead body and caught myself against the wall with one hand, watching the entity fall before I looked at my right hand. It was burned, raw, and there was no skin left on my palm of the undersides of my finger and the joint of my thumb—the flesh there wasn't black or burned looking, it just seemed like it had melted off. It had a yellow-white tinge on the top, almost as if it had become spontaneously infected.

"Impressive," I heard Hiei call down to me from his place at the top of the rock formation. "Think you can keep it up with the other Escque?"

"Probably not," I shouted back with a grin. I loved how easily I was able to handle pain now—my palm burned and it felt as though there was still some form of acid there, accompanied by a flesh-eating disease, and yet I was able to hold my voice level. I then noted the huge bite marks the black entity had inflicted upon me, realizing I hadn't really paid attention to them. They were leaking blood steadily, still, and my jeans were irreparable on the fronts of my thighs and on the sides of my lower legs where the teeth had pierced me, and I'm sure it was mirror or close to in the back, though it only felt like the lower half of my pants had been torn in the back. My hoodie as well was ripped on the sides of my arms, and the right side of my neck had been grazed by its fangs. I could only wonder what my human parents would say if they saw me now.

"Try as best you can," came Hiei's voice, breaking my thoughts. "There are too many for me to handle on my own. I'm sure I'd be able to, but we don't have time for me to kill them myself."

I nodded, shooting energy from my arm again, then deciding it was too taxing—I had used too much energy in the electric attack, so I switched to using my sword again. After all, these Escque and demons were nothing compared to the entities. These I could handle, easily.

I slashed through ten demons with a single arch swish of my blade, then I swung it back to cut through another set of ten. "Hiei!" I shouted upward. I saw him blasting a group of Escque and demons with a fireball—they had begun climbing the rocks to get to him again. He looked at me without his hands ever stopping spouting fireballs. His concentration was so exact and to be admired that I almost forgot what I was going to say, but his eyes made me recall. "Can you use the dragon? Is your strength back?"

"Not yet, no," was his reply. "However, I can use something similar if you think you can spare an energy sword—I can't use my own energy sword, it isn't enough like a steel sword to work."

I blinked, then shrugged, summoning a second sword in my left hand, using it to slash through a few demons before throwing it like a spear at Hiei. He raised his arm, the blade hitting it and spinning back away from him, and he caught it.

I decided afterward that two swords was a good idea, and effective, so I summoned a second and used the dual blades to slice through demons.

I saw a blast quite like the Black Dragon Wave slam into the group of demons below, but it was smaller, and there wasn't any true dragon form to it. It looked almost like his energy sword, but it was curling around my sword and it was larger, incinerating his opponents just like the Dragon did. I blinked, swinging my swords around like pinwheels, then I turned back to the oncoming Escque. The ranks were suddenly beginning to wandering off toward the canyon walls again, heading into the human world to spread death and destruction as originally planned. I growled, straightening the spiraling blades at my sides horizontally, and ran into the crowd of demons, not caring what followed me, and I sprang against the wall, shooting from outcropping to outcropping until I reached the top.

The woman from before was coming out from the edge of the woods, and her eyes widened as I sprang up. "How…how did you get up here from there? There isn't a path!"

I assumed she must have heard me or Hiei somehow, but as an Escque crawled to the top and lunged for her, I slashed it in half, and realized she could see it. "You can see them?"

"W-what are they?" she breathed, staring at its twitching body in horrified fascination.

"They're called Escque," I replied, realizing as I became ticked off with her question why Hiei was always irritable when I asked him. She didn't need to know the name and yet she asked anyway.

A group of demons surfaced from the ravine as well, and I let the swords in my hands fade, and I went back to shooting energy at them. "Get back!" I shouted at the human, who was standing around stupidly and watching me.

She stepped backward, and I could see that she was trembling.

_Human_, I thought as if it were a different word for 'idiot', and I growled, killing off a few more demons.

I found myself chanting the rift-closing spell, and it began to thin. I caught sight of Hiei looking up at it from where I stood at the edge, and I felt the familiar twinge of affection as I watched him, though my mouth never stopped moving, and my arms never stopped slashing demons. If ever I had loved someone it was him. I realized then that I would follow him no matter where he led me.

The rift shut amazingly fast, but I had sensed it weakening—it would have closed on its own even if I had not sped up the process.

Within twenty minutes the number of demons had thinned considerably, and with a final attack from Hiei's Black Dragon Wave-like sword, the reinforcements below were obliterated, and only the ones climbing the wall were left. I slashed off the heads of the last ten a they surfaced from the canyon, then turned to the human woman.

Her eyes held such fear that it stopped me momentarily. It wasn't fear of what had happened, the bodies, or the rift. It was fear of me.

I dropped my eyes and uttered a 'hn'-like sound I was surprised to hear, and then turned to Hiei as he came beside me. "Let's go. It seems your newly-found human isn't going to thank you at all."

I nodded, and I set off at a run beside him. We had to find the rest of the entities that had escaped…they alone could nearly end the world.

I caught sight of one to my right at the road, flying away from us, but then as I glanced at Hiei my eyes found a second going to opposite way. My gaze locked with Hiei's, and we just nodded in understanding, turning away from each other and running after both entities—Hiei ran to the left and I the right.

The one I was chasing was a white entity. It seemed the white ones were larger than the black, though the black entities were longer and at the same power level or more powerful.

I shot a large energy blast at it, and it slammed into the back of its head. Unlike an Escque or demon, it didn't seem to feel obliged to continue moving despite my attacks, and it wheeled on me, rearing backward aggressively. Then I realized it wasn't like the other entities I'd seen so far—its face was prettier and more dragon like, minus the tusks and horse-skull resemblance, and it had eyes.

I didn't bother with examining it further, glaring past its icy blue eyes as I attempted to determine a weak point. No specific spot on its body screamed weakness, so I raised my arm and shot an energy trail outward. As an idea sparked within me, I concentrated on the energy flying toward the attacking entity and watched as the red aura morphed into a few hundred swords, each stabbing into the entity at different points. It screeched and coughed, blood spurting from its gaping mouth, and as it began to fall sideways I suddenly pitied the creature. It was too beautiful and innocent seeming despite its attack attempt for me to not think twice about killing it like with the others.

Making a pitiful attempt at ignoring the twinge of sadness I felt, I began to run at it, knowing it wasn't dead. Shooting a ball of energy at its brow, my eyes widened as a large red eye, quite like a jagan, opened in the center of its forehead, just above between its eyes. As the eye finished opening and was hit by the attack, I suddenly gathered that the Red Eye I had seen for months before had not shown itself to me at all lately, ever since I began to remember what happened each night. Then it hit me that the red eye had probably been Hiei's jagan knocking me out so he could make me transform.

But my thoughts were quickly ceased as the entity absorbed the attack into its jagan-like eye much like the other entities had absorbed it into their empty eye sockets.

As my energy ball finished molding into its center eye, I was suddenly aware it was perfectly silent. The entity opened its mouth, and it threw itself forward, but there was no sound as it moved. It pulled up only inches before it slammed into me, and for some reason I felt no threat from it then. I blinked up into its huge eyes, but my own were cast sideways distractedly to look at the center red eye, and as my orbs linked with it, I was suddenly surrounded by black.

Black and silence. But I was conscious, and I hadn't moved, this much I knew. "What have you done to me?" I asked finally when I found my voice. It was incredibly warm wherever I was, but it was a nice kind of warm, and not too much so. The air was thin and clean, not thick and disgusting like in the human world. I suddenly realized 'what' wasn't the right question and re-formed it. "Where did you take me?"

"_Makai_."

I somehow found myself to be too overwhelmingly calm to even be surprised the entity could talk. "I've been to Makai before. I know I'm not blind right now—why can't I see?"

"_The demon world is dark. You should know this._"

"Dark, not blindingly colorless."

"_Smooth interpretation_." The entity's voice was like an echo, and I had the sense in the back of my mind that it wasn't directly speaking words, I was just perceiving them, like when a tree spoke. "_No, you are in Makai. You just are too calm._"

I didn't reply for a moment. "What does that mean?" I said finally.

"_Open your eyes and you will be able to see fine,_" came the reply, almost in a chuckling voice.

I realized the entity was correct—my eyes were closed. I found it was difficult to open them, but it wasn't because I was 'too calm', it was because the air around me was moving too fast for my eyelids to obey. I wasn't sure how I'd missed the feeling before, but I was falling. Rapidly.

The ground below me was far off, but as I neared it slowly (I was still moving incredibly fast, but the distance to the ground was much too far for it to seem like I was nearing it quickly) I felt no pressure change, and I wasn't getting light headed from lack of oxygen. "Why am I so calm?" I asked, as if I was sitting and chatting with the entity over tea rather than falling to my impending doom.

"_You are home._"

The word rang with a new sense. As I had said previous, 'home' no longer conjured the image of my human house. Maybe the entity was right, and I did consider this place home. It looked familiar, but not from this lifetime. I assumed that meant Chichiro had been to these parts before. "Why have you brought me here, rather than fighting me?" At voicing the word 'fight', I was suddenly drawn into remembering and thinking of Hiei, and I randomly felt a strange extreme desire to see him. It was nothing new to want to be around him, but I almost felt like crying at the extremity of the feeling now. The only reason I didn't shed any tears was because my mind was so blank and tranquil.

"_I will fight you. Do not mistake this transfer as a peace offering._" It was then that my eyes finally found the entity, who's presence had eluded my sight before, falling above me. I knew the entity could catch itself at any time—after all, they could fly—but it remained in falling motion along with me. The distance between us and the land was about half of what it had been when I first began falling, making me realize how high we really were. I was beginning to loose my calm as my phobia reawaked within me. "_I brought you here so that you can see what you are fighting against._"

"I saw you before."

"_You saw me as a thing that should be killed without second thought. I would have transferred the same philosophy to your black clad companion had I fought him. I only accepted you into a different category because you felt remorse at attacking me._"

"What am I supposed to see you as, then?"

"_For what I am. A Mahdaegrah._" (Forgive the spelling of its name. The actual word it used was barely anything like what is typed there, but the way an entity speaks cannot be typed very well—it is a series of clicks and tone changes that somehow formed words that I was able to perceive, and thus is the name in a normal language the best it could be written.)

"That name means nothing more to me than entity does."

"_And either name you still assume means something you should kill. Because the black clad told you to._"

"Is there something wrong with that?"

"_Look at the world below you._" I turned my blue-eyed gaze at the ground, which was creeping up on us. "_Is that really so bad?_"

"No, of course not."

"_Than why do you fight its progression?_"

"…What do you mean?"

"_The demons are only spreading demon world. Without the humans, Ningenkai will revert back to what it had been before the diseased infestation of those mongrel creatures. It will become an extension of Makai._"

I considered. "But still. You are planning on killing the humans to achieve such a goal, however wondrous I must admit the final result will be."

"_I specifically plan on no such thing. I know I will be dead long before that is reached._"

I turned to look at the dragon-like creature next to me. It really was brilliant looking, and it would have been able to be called beautiful by any species, even a human. "Than why are you fighting?"

"_The same reason you are. For the end result. You will kill me even after this conversation will be had. Though your mind hesitates now, it will not when we return to fighting. It will revert back to strike-and-kill, and you will no longer have second thoughts._"

"You haven't sufficiently answered my question. Why are you fighting? If you know you will die, why do you insist on contributing? You stalling me will not make much of a difference."

"_I do no such think as this 'stalling' accusation. I am showing you the truth._"

"What, a hopeless dream of yours that I'll crush?"

"_No. That you are one of us and you must accept that before the end._"

I blinked. "I know I'm a demon."

"_No. You know what your body is. Your mind is still pitifully in the set of a human or a human-like creature._"

I twitched. "Demons are human-like."

"_Not at all._"

"Just get to your point so I can blow your head off."

"_See? Our civil conversation has already been degraded and forgotten so that you can again kill without remorse. Simply because I told you it would be so. Just like how you fight because the black clad tells you so._"

"His name is Hiei," I growled. "And what are you saying? That I'm following orders like a puppy?"

"_No. Like a human._"

The entity caught me just before our bodies slammed into the ground, and I looked down at it, surprised. "What are you doing?"

"_What any demon in their sane mind would. Saving another demon._"

"But…I was going to fight you."

"'_Was'? Just because I saved you does not permit you to deny me a worthy fight._"

"You…still want to fight me?"

"_No. But you stand in the way of Makai's expansion and the removal of the human species, thus I must make the attempt at killing you, however futile._"

"Than you could have just let me fall. And you'd be done."

"_No, that would have been unfair. I transported you without permission—I would not let you fall to your doom and be killed in such a simple, messy manner._"

"So…you're going to try and kill me in a simple, messy fight?"

The entity made a sound quite like a laugh. "_Yes._"

"I'll feel bad killing you, now. I can't kill something I've talked to. I have an over-active conscience."

"_Than I will kill you._"

"Can't we just…not fight?"

"_Idealism. Such a human concept._"

"That's a no." I didn't ask it, I stated it.

"_Yes. I cannot let you go because you threaten expansion. You cannot let me go because I will return to expanding. There is no alternate._"

"You're just asking me to kill you, then. You know I'll win."

"_I ask you only for a fair battle. Because you can do nothing but fair, I trust that is what I will get._"

And then the entity rolled sideways midair and dropped me into a forest. I tumbled downward, catching myself after crashing through the first few layers of a tree and landing on a branch three times my own thickness.

The entity came at me seconds later, though as I sprang upward and dodged I noted that it pulled up and twisted over and around the branches of the tree rather than smashing through it. The entity was like a demon or demon-world born creature should be—it respected trees and the world unlike any human could.

I have to admit, there was a time then when I was fighting the entity that I almost considered telling it to stop, and that I'd join them. The humans just didn't seem worth it to save compared to the joys of having creatures like this spread across and rule the human world. The human world could be redeemed…it just not longer could be called or inhabited by the humans. It was thinking of Hiei that made me change my mind—not because of what he'd think of me for wanting to switch, but because I'd have to fight against him. And that was not something I was willing to do for any cause.

I grew up somehow that day. I had still seen myself as a thirteen-year-old from the human world before. I had thought thirteen was my age despite the fact I knew I was eight thousand. I accepted what I was—a demon. What that would mean was yet to be seen.

I killed the entity within minutes. As it lay dying, however, I found my legs to be weak. I had slashed its throat open, and it was bleeding beyond repair. I finally stopped caring how pitiful I would have seemed, and I collapsed against it and wept, apologizing again and again for killing it. Somehow I knew, though, that in having remorse for killing it the entity was at peace when it died. It knew something I did not…it knew what was to come from my revelations.

It knew I would learn to kill. To kill the infectious creatures that had destroyed the world, not the demons. I would learn to kill humans.

* * *

I somehow found my way back to Ningenkai. There were small tears in the sky around the rift that stretched down like small doorways, and I only had to find one to be able to return. It was about twenty feet up, but my body was transformed and it was a small feat.

I killed two more entities. Easily. I felt nothing toward them, for they were simple-minded beasts and were like the others, not like the _Mahdaegrah_.

Hiei found his way back to me as I finished killing a third, and I watched him leap down from the trees as I sat down against its corpse. It stung me only mildly to be against its side, as the mane was not touching me, and it seemed the mane was what really triggered the harsh burns like on my right hand. As I thought of it, I raised my hand to look at it, flexing and feeling the skin tear along the folds on whatever flesh was left on the underside, and I let my hand fall limp over my raised knee, watching as the blood drained down my fingers to my fingertips. I felt no pain. There was something eating at my nerves, yes, but the definition of pain did not fit it…I didn't care that it was there, and I wouldn't have been aware of it had I not automatically connected blood with pain.

After my eyes followed another drop of the ruby liquid to the ground, I lifted my eyes to Hiei, who was standing before me. "You've changed."

I looked back to the small pool of gathering blood and said nothing.

"What happened while we were separated?"

"I realized what I was." My voice sounded vacant, far off…I didn't mind it. It seemed more natural to my voice to be toneless.

I could feel Hiei's criticizing gaze on me still, but he didn't speak, and finally he turned and walked to a nearby tree, right past the fallen entity's muzzle's end, and he sat down, leaning against it. It was too small a tree for him to sit or stand in, and he didn't seem particularly driven to find one large enough for him to lie in.

"So. You finally got it through your thick head that you're a demon?"

I glared over at Hiei from the corner of my eye, but I found that my 'glare' was no longer a completely pissed off no-question expression…it was more like mild annoyance, like I was too arrogant to degrade myself to the level of a human and actually glare. "My head just isn't that thick, anymore," I replied quietly, looking away from him and back to where the rift had been. It was then that I connected the fact that wherever I was in Makai had a rift…but I remembered I had closed the one here. "There's another rift open," I mumbled softly, standing. "It isn't here, though. We have to find it."

I felt Hiei glance over at me. "Well, where do you suppose we go, then? It isn't like you're exactly pointing us in the right direction."

I shrugged. "Beats me." I looked over at Hiei, who was twitching lightly.

"You don't know? And yet you're suggesting we leave the place that has continually opened a rift for the past two days?"

I flipped my hair over my shoulder, turning from him and walking away, toward where I had returned to the human world. Maybe the mini tear between worlds was open and I could get back to Makai, and just use the rift myself. "Fine. Stay here, then. But I'm going to go find it."

I heard Hiei growl, then he just left it off at a 'hn'.

I felt like I shouldn't be leaving him, but I knew also that I had to close the other rift. So I just settled on that the feeling I had was just the side effect of the need I had for Hiei back in Makai.

Sure enough, as I found my way to the place of re-entry to Ningenkai, the tear was still intact. It was hovering in mid air, and just because I was naturally curious, I began to walk around it. As I reached its side, it completely disappeared, though soon as I was behind it, it reappeared. Shrugging, I stepped into it.

I was falling again, but the ground was only a few feet below me, and I pulled my legs up against my body upon reflex to keep my ankles from being injured.

I wasn't in the same place as before—far off I could see the woods I was in with the entity, but I was on the slope of a mountain now. I decided to ignore the fact and I looked around, and my eyes locked on the rift after only seconds of searching. "There you are," I growled in an undertone, and ran down the rocky black slope of the mountain, skidding only once (In my normal form I probably would have tripped and killed myself. I was naturally clumsy.) and I made my way to below the rift. I debated on how to get up to it; something told me I couldn't close the rift from where I was, so I figured my best bet would be to leap through it like the other demons were and close it from wherever it surfaced in Ningenkai.

I caught sight of another small tear like the one I had used to make my way to Makai, and I decided to use them like stepping-stones. I sprang upward to the closest, which was high both where it was in Ningenkai and in Makai, and I had nothing to lean on to. I simply had to stand on the somehow-existent dimensionless line that defined the tear, and then somehow push myself to the next. It was slow work, because I had to have absolutely perfect balance before continuing, or I fell the entire way back down and had to restart—kind of like those really annoying Nintendo games that you can't seem to get past because you always fall at the last level and have to start through everything all over again.

When I finally reached the rift, it felt a vacuum-like pull from it, but the physical tug was nothing compared to the yank I felt at my spirit and energy…like something drew me into it. I felt _obligated_ to go into it. I paused on the edge of the tear, and I breathed out slowly, calming myself, before leaping into it.

The Nintendo comparison could be used again for then—it was like the Tsudou Space in Chapter Black, the gateway between worlds. I was aware I was in nothingness, or as close to it as possible, but I could sense things around me. They had no better name than 'thing'. The experience reminded me of a nightmare—you knew there was danger around you and you felt fear, but you couldn't see exactly what you were afraid of.

Up ahead of me was the faintest of lights, coming from a circular disk, and as I neared it (I was simply floating toward it. If I had moved it wouldn't have made much of a difference, as my body was pulled along by itself.) I faintly made out the outline of a building, which meant this rift was above a city.

As I hit the disk and slid through it, feeling like I was pressing against a thin membrane of sorts, I began to fall. I was narrowly able to catch myself against a building, reaching out and snagging a windowpane. I used the inertia of my body to swing myself around and find footing on the sill below me.

I looked down, feeling a rush of fear flip my stomach as I saw the height of the building, but it wasn't as bad as if would have been a short while ago. I could see demons and Escque lining the streets below me, but there weren't many. I assumed that meant that the rest had already moved on.

I found my way along the continuous ledge to a pipe, and I kicked my legs around in a loop so that I could slide down it on the corner of the building.

I massacred the demons without second thought with my energy sword. There were more than I had originally assumed, hiding in the shadows and already infecting the buildings in the area. I could hear a human coming closer—he was shouting at something, but it didn't sound like he was in danger. Rather it sounded like he was talking to someone on the phone or someone he was walking away from, as it sounded like he was yelling over his shoulder. I growled—I doubted it would be good for another human to see me fighting. If the woman had seen me and been afraid of me, I dreaded what a person who wasn't as nice as she would do finding out I wasn't human myself.

I slashed through another demon, then straightened and stabbed the last just as a human came to the front of the alleyway, letting my sword fade. He stopped when he saw me, and a slow, cruel grin slid across his face. He was wearing a white beater shirt and jeans, and he has close-cropped blonde hair; he was about six-foot-five, and he was incredibly buff, but he had a small paunch. He immediately conjured images of the mafia or ghetto gangs in my mind. "Well, what are you doing out here alone, little girl?"

I twitched when he said 'little girl', more annoyed by that than threatened by his tone. "Back off," I growled, surprised to find that I had an accent for some reason. It sounded like a mix between Irish, South African, and something entirely different, like Aletta's voice.

"Ooooh, what was that? Are you threatening me?"

I growled. "I said back off. Interpret it as you like, weak-minded fool."

"Those are big words for such a small girl," the man replied in a mocking tone, his smirk never leaving his face, but I could tell he was annoyed at my insult.

I sensed more threat than he was showing, and I summoned my energy sword. He stared at it with the first sign of uncertainty, and I remembered that he couldn't see the demon bodies strewn about the alley. "Where the hell did that come from?" he hissed.

"Back off," I just repeated stonily.

He just continued to stare at the sword without moving, then his eyes slowly slid to meet with mine. "What's up with your eyes?" he asked randomly.

I blinked. "What about them?"

"They're like a cat's. And they're really weird colored…too light."

I had to restrain a grin as I realized that when I transformed I probably acquired cat-slit eyes. The 'too light' I could only assume meant that my eyes shifted from blue to gray. I didn't respond to his questions, but then I caught sight of an Escque behind him. it opened its rotting jaws and clamped them down on his arm, and he cried out. "Get down!" I shouted, springing at him, and I slashed the Escque's head off with my sword.

It seemed that as soon as the Escque attacked he was able to see everything—like he couldn't ignore it anymore because of the bite. His eyes widened, and I saw something snap within him, and his eyes had a different fire about them when he glared at me.

Human fear. It is so strong, it drives them to attack anything foreign. I had always thought concepts like that were misconceptions to be saved for sentimental moments in misunderstood monster movies, but I learned then just how correct the accusation was.

The man pulled out a gun, squeezing off a shot in my direction. I narrowly dodged it, surprised, but my surprise ebbed away quickly. Humans were stupid and simple—I posed a potential threat because I was so powerful, even though I had just saved his life. Thus he had to attack me.

I made my way closer to him as shots shattered the concrete walls around me, and one bullet grazed my cheek, but no others hit me. I slashed the gun in half with my sword, and he stared at the half he held with wide eyes before dropping it and swinging his fist at me.

I pulled my head backward and out of the way of his hand, growling. "Stop attacking me," I growled, feeling desperate. I knew I could easily wound, kill or maim him. I just wasn't sure how well I'd be able to avoid hurting him badly when stopping him. "I said stop it! Back off, stupid!" He wasn't listening. Speaking was to no avail. I let my energy sword fade, figuring I would better be able to keep from harming him too bad only using my fists. "I don't want to—" He didn't let me finish my sentence, and dove at me with the human clumsiness I always hated, swinging his fist at me. I stepped 'gently to the side', trying to speak again. "Don't do this. You cannot win. I will—" He lunged a second time, and I snarled, kneeing him in the groin. "You fucke'!" I shouted, my newly-found accent taking over. "I said quit it!" The procession of him attacking me, me knocking him some place and causing him pain, and him groaning for a few seconds before circling the cycle again continued for a few minutes, before he managed to make contact…with my shoulder.

I'm fairly sure I screamed. Or at least made a sound of pain. Who knows, maybe it muted me. But in any case, it was the last of my patience. I roared with a cat-like snarl that almost scared me, but inside I was so perfectly calm that I _did_ scare myself.

I sprang at him, dragging my claws (that I had not even been aware of until I used them to attack) down the side of his face and diving inward for his neck, sinking my jaws right at the base of his neck, and tore upward and over, savoring the taste of his disgusting human flesh in my fangs. He gave a strangled cry, which was cut short as I dove again and ripped into the front of his neck. The taste of blood flew into my mouth like it was begging me to drink it all. I concentrated on the warm, metallic taste as he made strange gurgling noises as the remainder of his blood pooled into his mouth.

Sliding my tongue over my lips and sharpened fangs, I was about to go for more, before the sudden sound Hiei's voice stopped me.

"I've broken you."

It wasn't so much a statement as a confession. I whipped my hair around as I looked at him, and I knew I looked savage and blood-thirsty. It wouldn't surprise me if my eyes were still reverted to cat slits and were grayer than the sky. But the look in his eyes immediately killed my lust…at least, my lust for quenching my thirst. I still hungered for the taste of the human's blood, but he looked so lost that I stopped. I guess…I guess it was because it was the first time I'd killed since I died, and he wanted to keep me somehow innocent. Or maybe, he thought the demon in me would take over. Whatever it was, the sadness in his gaze stopped me.

I hungered to bleed the corpse before me dry, but I knew it would sadden him worse, and my hair flew upward slightly as I jerked my head down quickly to avoid his look.

Which only brought me face-to-face with the lifeless, seeping body in front of me.

The look in the man's cold, dead eyes horrified me…he still looked terrified even after his spirit had fled his body. His mouth was gaping, and the blood was running over the edge of his mouth like there was a faucet in the middle of his gullet.

I choked on the taste in my mouth and gagged, leaning to the side and retching.

Hiei stood silently and waited for me to recover, then he said, "So. This is your first, isn't it?"

I nodded mutely, standing. My clothes were soaked in blood. "How…How do we cover it up?" My voice was trembling only slightly, and it was still so calm it creeped me out. The accent had dissapeared.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

I shivered lightly and looked at him, but past his eyes and not into them. "So I don't…you know, get caught. For….k….for this."

Hiei laughed lightly; it was so fake it wounded me to hear it. I knew I'd hurt him somehow by killing the human. "What an odd idea. If you can manage, look at the bite marks and scratches you left." Slowly my eyes left Hiei's face and slid over to the body, and I willed my gag reflex to calm itself. Quite frankly, it looked like he had been attacked by a wolf…or, maybe something bigger, like a lion. A bear, even, but not anything human-like.

Not to say I was human, but it would be hard to prove that anything even resembling a human had done it. "What about saliva tests?"

"Hn. Not like you honestly think your saliva is the same when you're…for lack of better words, 'transformed' than when you're not. Right?"

I shrugged. The blankness I felt was overwhelming. I felt like crying, but at the same time I felt like laughing until I died from exhaustion, and mixed in that was a lust for more…to kill more. The power of it was amazing, like it was addictive. "I guess so," I said in the most even voice I was able to manage. Then, with the slightest shaking of my voice at the word 'so', I broke and crumbled to the ground, sobbing.

I had killed someone.

…And it had been _so easy_. And I had enjoyed it, savored every minute. And I wanted more. And I barely felt guilt.

It was the concept itself that disturbed me. It wasn't the body near me, no; it was how calm I was after killing. No conscience toward it.

It, quite frankly, scared me.

I shook worse than I ever had, and one would have thought I was having a seizure.

Hiei stood in the alleyway without moving for a while, probably feeling awkward toward the whole thing, but then he surprised me by coming behind me and putting his hand on my shoulder. No welcoming embrace, no, but for him it was enough, and in some ways it was better than anything else. I finally stopped crying, but I was still shaking badly when I stood. My legs felt so weak. And I was tired, but much too alive to sleep.

I shivered convulsively, and then Hiei said, "I suppose we're done."

I nodded, still mute, and wrapped my arms around his neck.

As we were leaping from each building to the next, I brought my arms across my shoulders and curled myself into the smallest ball I could manage, burying my face in the strange fabric of his coat; it smelled like leather, but it was much too soft and suit-like to be leather. I closed my eyes and shivered again, willing the image of the human's dead, tortured face away from my thoughts.

I was barely aware that we were in my city. Everything seemed far away, and all of me was focusing in on what I had just done. I could smell blood reeking off of me as strong as the smell of sulfur in a well. It made me sick.

"What's it like, Hiei," I asked faintly, randomly, "to have you back pressed against the weight of the world? It must be hard."

Hiei looked down at me silently. "What's that supposed to mean? If you're referring to fighting the Escque, you're in it, too. You can just look to your own experience for the answer to that question."

"But…you've been doing it so much longer than I have." I felt tears forming in my eyes. I knew Hiei didn't feel remorse like I did at killing, but he might have at one point. He had killed so many humans in his lifetime.

"You aren't talking about the Escque, are you?" he muttered softly after a moment. "You're talking about killing in general."

"And fighting to protect the world…you were as good as alone before I started fighting with you. Kurama and Yusuke and the others fight for it, too, but you were here in Ningenkai alone." I felt my shoulders start shaking lightly as I spoke, and I tried to suppress my crying. "It must have been horrible."

"I'm a loner by nature," he replied monotonously. "I knew nothing else for such a long time I became used to it. It isn't anything new."

I didn't respond, and I felt like hugging him. I didn't know why, and I wasn't about to listen to that want, but I really, _really_ wanted to embrace him. I sighed, but that made me breathe in the scent of blood more. I almost retched again, but I controlled myself, and somehow curled myself closer to Hiei and began to cry again. He said nothing to criticize or comfort me, but just the fact that I was in his arms was enough for me.

I felt myself being lowered onto my bed after only a few minutes, and I curled myself into a smaller ball and continued to cry, but then I realized Hiei was leaving to go outside again, as usual. I turned to him quickly. "Stay," I whispered, my voice hoarse. "Please don't go." My voice was choked. I hated how feeble and simpering my voice sounded, but at the moment I didn't really care.

He stopped at the window, looking back. I felt myself shaking horribly, and tears were rolling down my face, though my eyes were only clouded by fear, not moisture. His leg was already on the sill, his hand on the lifted window, but he gazed at me a moment longer, and he stepped down, setting his foot on my trunk, sliding the window closed. He looked down as he sat, and then he 'hn'ed softly, but said nothing more.

I buried myself in the covers and shook, crying quietly, but I knew nothing would make it ten feet near me with him there. I didn't know what I was afraid of…maybe it was myself. But the overwhelming sense of it I had made me need Hiei closer to me than usual.

So I closed my eyes and eventually slept.

* * *

The morning found me feeling blank. I remembered everything as soon as I woke…after all, I had dreamt about what had happened all night long.

I could sense that Hiei was outside in the tree, but something told me it was just for safety to keep my parents from seeing him. I knew he had been inside with me near the entire night.

"I don't want to have to do that again," I choked quietly, and I sensed his eyes turn to me. "I…wanted to kill him so bad when it was happening." I tightened my fists and felt my nails dig into my palms. "I wanted to…bleed him dry." I was clenching my teeth. "But now I…now I know what I did, and it's like…like that was someone else, not me." I paused and shuddered, trying to keep my voice level. "But I know it was. And I don't…I don't even want to have to kill a human ever again. I don't care that he was 'asking' for it. I shouldn't have killed him. He was human." That summer I still had the ideals of a typical save-the-world-superhero, and I thought the entire human species deserved to be saved, no matter what a particular human did. I didn't care that he would have killed me without compunction. I didn't care that it was one of my only options. I just didn't think I should have done it. "Is it going to get worse from here? Am I going to have to…have to kill again?"

"It will get harder. But as to killing, I don't know. It's possible." He paused, and after receiving no response, he spoke again. "You have to be positive you want to continue. It only gets harder from here."

I was suddenly almost angry with him. Almost. I was still unable to feel any true bad feelings toward Hiei, but I was snapped out of my depression and remorse by his words. He hadn't given me a choice before…and he was giving me one now, after the damage had already been done? "Harder than last night?" He didn't reply. "You're the one who trained me."

"Hn."

"And you brought me into this in the first place." I knew I was hurting him with my words, but I didn't feel particularly kind at the moment and didn't censor them for his sake. "So maybe you should have asked me that in the beginning, before any of this."

He still didn't reply, and I sighed lightly and spoke again, in a softer, more lost tone. "It's too late to turn back now. I'm a part of this. It's my life."

"You can always turn back," he replied in a low tone.

"Maybe you think I can. But can you?"

"I've been in this longer than you."

"But can you? Could you when you were as far in as I?"

There was a long pause before he said, "No."

"And neither can I." I fought to keep my eyes from watering, because I knew it was a mistake to take this further. But what I had said was truth—I couldn't and wouldn't break the life I had even if I could. "I guess…" I smiled faintly. "I guess we have something in common now."

He looked up for a moment, but I wasn't looking to catch his gaze and he returned to looking at his boots. "What's that?"

"We're both murderers."


	16. Nirvana, and the Black Dragon Wave

**Authoress's Note:** I've been waiting _so_ long to write this chapter, just like with the last one that involved Ketsue killing a human. There are certain parts in the storyline of this that I really want to skip through everything else for, and I'm amazed I got all the way to twenty chapters before I wrote this one. Anyway, besides that, I'd like to thank my one-and-only current regular reviewer, Song of a Fallen Angel, because you, frankly, rock. You review almost every chapter, you advertised my story, and recently in your fanfiction you even referenced in a description of mine (And the mini-verbal-fight scene, I noticed, but meh.). –Squee's- I feel so loved. Keep it up, it's motivating me to continue. Thanks so much for your support. And thanks, also, to all of my other past reviewers: The Schizophreni Trio, Bar-Ohki, ShadowsofBlood, Sapphire767, Kaosu Rei (Though I replied to your review and never received one back), FoxWitch, Alex (...Riiight.), sakurasango, WildChild026, Xx Behind the Smile xX, and most recently, jaganshigirl101. You all rock.

**Disclaimer:** Neither Hiei, nor Yu-Yu-Hakusho is mine.

**Claimer:** Chichiro is mine, Kaze is BritKit, Aria is FoxWitch. While not all the characters are mine, all writing, storylines and concepts in this fanfiction (Save any YYH references) are.

It was almost August already. Maybe it was, I wasn't sure. Calendar dates seemed exceedingly unimportant.

Life felt dragging. There is no better word for it. Everything seemed insignificant, dull.

My parents were going off to some sort of party with the rest of my human family, but I feigned sick and remained 'home'. They offered to stay 'home' with me, but I insisted on them going. I wanted to be alone. Well, alone save for Hiei. I didn't mind him being there. I never had and doubted I ever would.

As soon as they left I threw the covers off myself and went downstairs. I had needed to keep my covers concealing my body until they left—I was still wearing the torn clothes from my fight, and my wounds were clearly visible. I didn't quite feel like explaining where I got them.

Downstairs I considered eating, but the thought of it made me feel sick. I then simply decided to take a shower—I was in much need of one.

As the water washed the drying blood off of my body, I examined my various wounds with a sigh. My arms were completely torn and scarred beyond repair now—I doubted my skin would ever return to normal. My right hand had apparently been clenched when it scabbed over again, as it was stuck in that position; I seemed to have remembered what pain was, as I was unable to pull the scab off to clean the wound and let it heal in a more natural position. My legs had large slashes and fang marks in them from the entity, and they felt weak, stiff and heavy—it was hard to stand or walk.

I traced my finger over the scratch on my face from where the bullet had clipped me, and I found myself crying again. It was hard to tell the difference between the water and my tears, but I was taking a cold shower as usual and my tears were warm.

I dressed in a black camisole, my other hoodie and a pair of jeans. My normal attire.

Finding myself unable to be on the computer, watch TV, or anything normal, I went outside and sat on the chaise lounge that my parents used for sunbathing, my hands in my hoodie pockets. I could sense Hiei not far off, but my mind was tired and it infected my senses—I could only tell that he was close and behind me, I couldn't tell where.

I found myself sucked into thinking of the human I had killed over and over. It was like a disease in my mind, seeping into the smallest of cracks and remaining there, becoming increasingly worse as time passed. I couldn't close my eyes against it, as the backs of my eyelids only conjured images of the human's face stronger than when they were open.

Had that really been me? I tried to blame it on Chichiro, but I knew it hadn't been her fault (For once.) this time. It _had_ been me who killed him. I knew it, but it left some strange pit in my stomach that made my mind go blank. I still didn't feel guilt for killing him, but the fact that I had killed made my chest feel like a raw, open wound. I wanted to blame someone. Someone other than myself…Chichiro for, well, being Chichiro and the most likely to have brought this upon me,; the human for his stupidity; Hiei for dragging me into this…but I didn't. I didn't allow myself to cover up for what I did in an innocent façade or false blame.

"You'll get used to it."

I didn't look up at Hiei…I felt like I wanted to, but I didn't move to even show I had heard him. "Get used to it?" I mumbled finally. "To the fact that I killed, or killing?"

"Hn." Hiei was silent a moment, and then he said, "Both."

There was silence again for a short while, maybe two minutes. Finally I brought myself to look at him. "Do you really think I'll have to kill again?"

I seemed to have caught him off guard. "I never said that."

"No, but when you said 'both' you meant I'd get used to killing. So…you must think I'll have to again."

"You may," he said quietly. "But I won't assume anything."

I watched him for a moment, but when he shifted his blood-colored gaze to me I broke my own and looked back to the pavement of my patio.

He sat on the step just in front of the door to my house, and I think I heard a muffled sigh. I glanced at him from the corner of my eyes, and saw him lean against the sliding door. I grinned lightly as I caught sight of my cat, Tango, playing with Hiei's form through the glass.

Hiei hated cats. I didn't know why, but he despised them. He didn't hate Tango for any particular reason, but he hated the entire concept of the feline species. When I had asked him a while go why he hated them, he had just mumbled something incoherently that sounded a bit like 'bad experience.' I couldn't think of any experience with a cat that would make him hate the entire breed, but I didn't ask further. The conversation seemed to have made him uncomfortable.

"Can we train?" I asked quietly. The word 'train' caused a tug at my heart that made me recall the human's dead face, blood dribbling from his lips clumsily. I winced at the thought.

"Are you sure you want to? You don't seem to be in a very enthusiastic mood toward fighting."

"For understandable reasons," I muttered. "I'm sure. I just want to do _something._ I'm not used to being stuck here in this human prison for so long at one time."

I briefly saw the flash of Hiei's teeth from the corner of my eyes, which I assumed meant he had grinned, and there was amusement in his voice when he spoke. "We've only been here about eight hours, six of which you spent sleeping."

"It's still too long," I replied.

Hiei made his 'hn'-like laugh, which I suppose was much like 'heh', but not quite. "Alright. Where do you suppose we go?"

"Somewhere…new."

"Anything particular in mind?"

"Mendon Ponds," I said after a moment. "I know you said not to go there before because of the Escque traveling through water, but I'm fairly sure I'm capable of crushing a few Escque. Besides, there are places relatively far away from water." And then I recalled, as I said 'Escque', that I had not closed the rift the night before. "Hey, what happened with the rift?"

"It closed itself again. It seems these recent rifts are too powerful and large to sustain themselves. Until a being who has the power to keep them open comes along, they will close themselves relatively fast."

I nodded. "So, how about it?"

"Do you want to go now, in the daylight? If humans saw us—"

"Then we'd be screwed," I finished with a sigh. "Fine, then, why don't we stay here? I mean, we used to spar here and we stopped just because my parents could have found out. They aren't home, so there's no harm in doing it here."

Hiei quirked a brow. "Have you completely forgotten about the other humans?"

"…You mean my neighbors? Nah, they already think we're the 'weird' family. Might as well give them reason."

Hiei chuckled lightly, which brought a small smile to my face—the first real smile I'd been able to conjure since the night before.

I stood, about to get into a stance to show Hiei I was ready, but as I tried to make a fist, my half-clenched right hand burned, and the pain stopped me. I muttered a quick 'damn', bringing my hand up to look at it.

"Is it healing like that?"

I nodded over at Hiei, shifting my gaze toward him, though my eyes still refused to meet his.

"I have a feeling you're going to hate me for this."

"What are you—" But my sentence was cut off by my own feeble cry as I felt my hand ripped into a straight-out position. I was light-headed at the sudden shock, and I'm fairly sure I almost went unconscious, but I tore my hand from Hiei's and held it to my body, whimpering. "You…jerk," I hissed tightly after my voice was recovered.

"Don't keep clenching it like that or I'll do it again."

I winced and unwound my fingers slowly, flinching. I ignored Hiei and brushed past him into the house, rummaging through the cabinet in the bathroom with one hand for a few seconds before I found the bandages, and I opened the container with my mouth, wrapping it messily around my bleeding right hand. It stung to even have anything touch the underside of my hand, but I just clenched my teeth and bit against any verbal protests.

"Don't wrap your fingers together. It will only cake them with blood and it will take longer for them to heal."

I twitched. "Thanks for the tip." I glared over at him. "What the hell was that back there, anyway? You could have at least _warned_ me before your _tore my hand off_."

Hiei sighed. I only noticed then that he was wearing his cloak and had been ever since the alleyway, which made me wonder when he'd retrieved it, and where he'd retrieved it _from_. "We both know that if I had warned you, you wouldn't have let me. Clearly it was the only possible way to do it."

I rolled my eyes and said nothing, remembering what Hiei had said and wrapping my fingers individually.

"Are we still going to spar?"

I realized the only reason Hiei probably wanted to was to keep himself from becoming bored. "Yeah, sure. But give me a minute, I'm kind of in _pain_."

I heard another sigh behind me, and when I turned to the doorway Hiei was gone. I found it mildly humorous in a grim sort of way that I was reacting this badly to pain on my hand, and I barely even noticed the huge puncture wounds across my body from the entity's teeth. My left arm was healing from when Hiei had stabbed it, and from when he slashed it (Wow, he sure is getting a bad reputation, isn't he?) while we were sparring, and it moved fine now without much pain. I knew that if my body were human I would have probably needed to heal for a few months, not a few weeks.

I mirrored Hiei's sigh before brushing my chin-length bangs out of my eyes and walking out the door, heading back outside.

I half-expected an attack from Hiei, and I was given it as soon as I walked outside. He slammed into me, thrusting me against the wall of the back of my garage, and I brought my knee up, shoving his body backward, and I brought my fist around to catch the side of his face. I spun off the wall as soon as he was momentarily stunned backward by the punch, and I threw energy outward at him. He leapt up to dodge it, and he slammed down onto me, knocking me to the ground. I hadn't noticed that he had unsheathed his sword, and it pierced through the skin just below where the Escque had bitten me roughly a month before, and I winced, but didn't cry out—I simply reached over and grabbed the sword with my bandaged right hand, yanking and snapping it just above where it had gotten me.

Hiei sprang back, and I lifted myself using only my right elbow, sliding myself out of the shard of the blade, which had gotten stuck into the ground. It was completely red-stained when I stood, but I ignored the pain with such ease that it almost amazed me. I mean, I had a hole in my shoulder now, I was fairly sure he had clipped my collarbone with his sword, and I was bleeding a helluva lot more than I ever had before Hiei had come along and entirely switched my life around, but I was able to completely breeze past it and continue fighting. I realized with a grin as I summoned my energy sword, required to use both hands rather than just my right like usual just because my right could not hold it alone, that I was beginning to act like Hiei did toward pain; I had always admired him for it…did that mean I was improving?

I shot energy at Hiei again, but pulled up my hand and drew the energy ball back at me as I saw he was springing out of the way, which would have meant I would have hit a tree. I had three trees in my backyard, all nicely lined up about ten feet away from each other against the fence; Hiei was currently in front of the third tree, which was at the corner of the fence that led back toward my house. He was moving along them so I'd pull up, I knew he was. I twitched.

Just as he got past the first tree on the far side of the yard, I shot off an energy ball much like a spirit gun toward him, and he bent backward mid-spring to avoid it, twisting in a backward flip and landing in my neighbor's yard, leaping off the ground again to throw himself at me again. He had his broken sword in his hand again, suddenly, and he formed an energy sword around it, slashing out at me. I blocked with my own, and again the ground around us glowed yellow, same as the last time we sparred with swords, and I could feel our blades beginning to vibrate, and then they began to make that strange singing noise, just like the last time as well.

"Where'd you get the new sword?" I asked, shoving my weight against mine. I meant the actual sword, not the energy he had cased it in. "Yours broke."

"And you gave me an energy sword of yours, or did you forget?"

I clenched my teeth; Hiei was still in the air, the energy on our blades keeping him suspended. He was somehow thrusting more weight onto his, pressing mine down, and it was becoming increasingly harder for me to hold my own up. "But my energy swords fade when I'm not around, don't they?"

"Not if I reinforce it with small increments of my own energy and completely replace it," was Hiei's response, and I realized we probably looked funny; both our swords were glowing angrily with energy and close to snapping level, and Hiei was in the air above me, and yet we were talking normally.

"But your energy isn't like mine—it doesn't form steel swords." I had to twist sideways as our swords snapped as we had both been guessing they would, and Hiei dove at me, throwing his fist outward.

"No, but I said 'small increments'. If it's in small doses it can make something close to steel." I noticed as I ducked his fist that his broken sword was slightly different colored than the ones my energy made…a sort of bluish tinge.

I grabbed his wrist and used the inertia of my form to slide under him like someone dodging an out in baseball, sliding onto the base, and threw him backward.

He landed with his feet against the fence, and he pushed off it and shot at me again. I rolled out of the way, his punch causing a large crater in the ground, and the earth flew up around me. I got myself into a crouch and leapt backward, though a rogue rock still hit my brow lightly. I growled, annoyed—it didn't hurt, but, still, being hit by a rock wasn't my idea of fun.

As Hiei leapt at me again, I blinked, surprised; Aletta was standing in her spiritual form above the crater, and I could see the earth slowly re-forming where it had been broken, and grass began to re-grow. Well, at least I didn't have to explain that to my parents.

Hiei pulled his arm back, and as it came forward I raised my own hand. My fist slammed into his, but the force behind his own still thrust my arm backward and wheeled my body around, but it had disengaged the punch nonetheless, and I immediately countered, aiming my fist for his neck. He ducked narrowly, catching my fist and tightening his hand about it, yanking toward himself and throwing me backward, over him. I flipped mid-air (still not used to being able to flip, I grinned as I did so) and spiraled so my feet once again faced the ground, and I pulled my knees to my chest so my ankles wouldn't burn as badly when I landed. I slid backward, looking up quickly and x-blocking with my arms as he came down again, retrieving my left arm from it immediately to catch a kick he threw at my side. I blocked and then grabbed his leg and whipped around, aiming his body over at the fence, but he narrowly caught himself and flipped backward over it, landing in a crouch in what was fairly much the coolest move I'd ever seen, for his back didn't even graze the kneading of the fence that stuck up. Nonetheless, I couldn't help but feel prideful at the fact that he'd caught himself _narrowly_.

I was getting better.

Hiei thrust himself off the ground with a heave of his arms and came at my legs first; I tried to catch his legs to throw him aside, but he somehow maneuvered them out of the way and fastened his ankles around my neck, flipping and throwing me as he somersaulted on the ground back toward the middle tree. I didn't have time for a clean landing, and I heard my elbow crack as it imploded lightly, but I didn't give Hiei any time to take advantage of my momentary pain, and I threw myself off the trunk with my legs, diving for him with no particular plan like before, throwing a punch, which he caught and began to twist around my back, but I threw another and grazed the side of his face with it, using the ground as leverage to get behind him. He still had my arm and it killed as it twisted unnaturally, but I raised my knee and pressed it to his spine, between his shoulder blades, and choked in a heaving voice, "I win."

Hiei released my arm, and I lowered my knee, breathing hard, and flew backward into a clumsy sitting position, immediately coiling inward to my favorite position of one knee in a v-shape with my right arm resting on it, and the other outward and slightly in the v-shape of the other, my left arm supporting me. I gave a large sigh after a few moments of heavy breathing, then looked up at Hiei. "You're going to tell me you went easy on me, right?"

"I might've been a bit distracted," he replied with a wry grin, "but I'm not human and I won't tell you I loosened up for you. It isn't in my nature to go easy."

I grinned and fell backward, loving the feeling of my torn muscles twitching lightly as they repaired themselves stronger than before, and savoring every moment of the breathlessness I felt. I knew that if we were actually fighting he would have beaten me; if he had tried to kill me, he could have, but he wasn't trying to kill me—he was only sparring. And I had won.

Hiei leapt upward and flipped backward into the third tree, near the edge of my neighbor's fence, and went into a similar position to mine, but his left leg hung down over the branch.

"I'm getting better, aren't I?" I said, my breath still recovering, but becoming less and less of heaves.

Hiei smirked. "Hn. Of course you are…Look whose teaching you."

I grinned back at him, looking up. "Still taking credit for everything, eh?"

"Hn."

I sighed again and stood, bending backward, hearing my vertebrae in my lower back snap, and then straightened, stretching, and went inside.

Fighting Hiei had made me forget the human, if only for a short while. Maybe that was what he was planning on.

I flopped backward in my bed upstairs, not feeling like remaining downstairs. I sensed Hiei in his usual tree.

I stared at my ceiling, lost in thought; it felt like something was coming. Something big. I closed my eyes and breathed outward in an almost-sigh, hoping it didn't mean I was going to kill another human.

"Did you feel that?" Hiei said suddenly, right after an extremely cold feeling whipped over my body like a harsh wind.

"Yeah. That's a rift, isn't it?"

I sat up quickly, looking over at Hiei. He nodded. Another huge wave of cold ran through my body, and I realized this rift was larger than the others. With mild dreading, I thought, _Damn. Another increase in rift size. They just keep getting bigger, don't they?_

"No," Hiei said, and I assumed he had read my thoughts, "this rift isn't much bigger than the others."

"What do you mean? By my senses, that thing's _huge_!"

"No, your only sensing the demons coming through. They're stronger than the others. A-class, actually."

I blinked. "What? Class?"

"I guess the anime didn't explain demon ranking, then," Hiei muttered (It does. However, at this point I had not seen those episodes.). "An A-class demon is the second strongest there is."

"What are you?"

Hiei shrugged. "I can easily beat an A-class, so I suppose Koenma's Spirit World lackeys would consider me an S-class."

I blinked. "But…wait, if A-class is the second strongest, why does it drop down to the letter S? Does it stand for something, like super?"

"Who knows? I don't really care."

"What have we been fighting, then?"

"The highest demons we've fought have probably been upper D-class. An entity, if it were a demon, would most likely have been a middle to lower B-class."

"What am I considered?"

"Middle B-class, I'd guess."

"Middle? The entities are at my level?"

"I said middle to lower for them, and I don't know if they are considered your level. No doubt the Mahdaegrah is your level." He pronounced the entity's name perfectly, with all the clicks and strange sounds the Mahdaegrah itself had used.

"…You can say that?"

"What, Mahdaegrah? It is in demon, after all. It's my native language."

"Really?"

"Well, what did you think my native language was, English?"

"I don't know…Japanese, I guess."

"Anime is corrupting your mind again, isn't it?" Hiei muttered, and I grinned and snickered lightly.

"Probably." I recalled my question from a while ago, and I decided to reiterate it. "Can you teach me demon? I know you said last time that I wouldn't get it, 'cause I 'suffered' at Spanish, but I would actually care about learning demon. Forgive me for not being particularly motivated toward learning a language I'll never use outside of school."

Hiei raised his eyebrows at me. "And you think you'll use demon any more than you'd use Spanish?"

I snorted, nearly defeated, but not quite. "I could use it to talk to you. And anyway, do I need a reason besides wanting to learn it?"

"And next you'll ask me to teach you Japanese, right?"

"…You know, that'd be really nice." Hiei glared at me flatly, and I sighed. "Alright, fine, I'll shut up. Shouldn't we be getting to that rift, though?"

Hiei nodded, and I went to him, about to transform, but he shook his head. "Don't bother. You can't get there fast enough by yourself." He knocked my knees from underneath me and caught me, and sprang off the tree branch, heading toward the city.

I sighed indignantly. "You could have warned me," I mumbled, ignoring the fact that I had already said that before, recently.

"Hn. I'd say telling you that I'd have to carry you would suffice as a warning."

"No, you just said—"

"Drop it, ningen."

I growled, grumbling to myself, "Damn Jaganshi," without much enthusiasm or spite. I leaned against him with another sigh, and I had to wonder if it was ever awkward to Hiei to have to carry me. But then I thought his ever-present lines of "I'm not human" or "I'm a demon" came to mind and I realized he was probably indifferent toward the concept. "Hey, Hiei?" I realized that I 'Hey Hiei'ed a lot.

His 'hn'-like question noise was his response, as always.

"If these demons are A-class, and I'm only middle B-class…what good will I be?"

He didn't reply for a moment, and then he said, "You're improving, and if you can get me in a vulnerable position in a spar I have confidence that you could kill an A-class."

"If…you think I can kill an A-class, than why do you think I'm a middle B? Wouldn't I have to be a higher level to be able to kill one?"

"Fighting skills and spiritual power are not the same thing; demons are ranked by their power, not their maneuverability."

I got the gist of what he said…at least, I think I did.

As Hiei said, the rift wasn't much larger than the last few; there weren't any demons or entities coming from it, either. "Uhm…Hiei? Nothing's coming out of the rift."

"No, they're either already here or waiting for us to arrive before they come from demon world. A-class demons are actually intelligent. They know we're coming for them and they've probably neatly gathered somewhere to wait."

I didn't reply. I was nervous, for the first time in a while, about this fight. I have to admit, I was getting quite sick of foreboding feelings, and for having _reasons_ for my random dread. The last time I had ignored it, though, had been the day before, and that had lead to me killing a human. And thus, I wasn't going to ignore it again.

"Hiei, I have a bad feeling," I mumbled quietly. I didn't usually tell him about my 'feelings', as Shizuru called what she sensed, but I felt the need to now. "I don't know why, but I don't think we should fight them."

"Hn. What do you propose, then, that we just walk away and let the A-class demons destroy the world?"

I didn't reply and just mumbled incoherently to myself, unsure of how to further explain what I meant.

Hiei began to slow as we reached the city, and as he leapt upward onto a high building and landed, he let me down. "Where are we, Hiei? Why'd you stop?"

"We're near them—do you sense it?"

I looked around me; I could sense _something_ amiss, but it didn't feel much different than usual, though there was a certain difference. "Yeah…what's up with this energy I'm sensing? It's…weird."

"I don't know." I looked over at Hiei as he began to speak again. "Maybe you should stay—"

"Oooh, no. You aren't going to leave me here, not after you dragged me all the way here talking about how I'd be able to beat an A-class demon."

I heard Hiei chuckle lightly. "Fine, then. Come on." He picked me up again, and sprang down off the building. It took us roughly two minutes to get there.

'There' referred to a large field; it seemed out of place, so close to the city, and there was a random cement wall nearby, I assumed from an old building. The 'field' wasn't so much a large strip of open land as it was a strip of pavement bordered with grass. On the pavement was a large amount of demons; they all were distinguished from each other and fairly human-like, unlike the lizard-like demons that seemed to be different version of one another that we usually fought.

Their energies put together made me feel weak; they were incredibly powerful. I wasn't sure what Hiei had meant by thinking I would be able to take on an A-class demon, but I sure didn't have as much confidence in that as he did.

"They're here," said one of them—a female demon, with ram horns.

"Finally," growled another, a male, who looked much like her but less human.

"I see they have anticipated our arrival," Hiei muttered to me, and let me down.

"That girl has nothing against us." That came from an incredibly large, tall demon standing next to the male ram demon. "She isn't even upper B-class."

"Yes, but that demon with her…" The ram demoness grinned as she spoke; her voice was smooth and soft, almost arrogant. "He could pose a challenge. I believe he's an S-class, would you agree?"

There were many other demons with them; maybe seventy. It wasn't much compared to the numbers of demons and Escque I'd fought before, but their power was much greater even in their small numbers.

"Enough chat." I glared over at the tall, lanky green male demon who had spoken, and he opened his mouth again to make my ears sting with his annoying voice. "Let's kill them!"

I didn't even see the demons move, but there was a sword run through my stomach before I had even registered that the tall green demon was before me. I winced, tasting blood in my mouth, but I slammed my fist into the side of his face, and, enraged by his arrogance and idiocy, I grabbed onto his neck with my other hand, crushing his vertebrae in my fist and sending energy through his body, which turned to reddish-colored slush before me.

I then became aware of the fact that his sword was still impaled in me and sticking out of my abdomen, and I flinched as I retrieved it, blood-stained.

The demons before me seemed stunned that I could so easily kill one of them. "Well," I growled, feeling blood running down my stomach from the wound, "if all of you are that simple of kill, I don't think we'll have to waste much time here."

I sensed Hiei smirk from next to me.

The ram demoness recovered her calm demeanor, which had momentarily appeared startled. "I see. More than meets the eye." She turned to the other demons. "No matter. Kill them."

I wasn't able to keep track of what had attacked Hiei, but I was quickly swamped by demons. They didn't waste time attacking one-by-one, and the best was to describe it would probably be dog-piling. After I was sufficiently pissed off at being crushed beneath them, much like being flattened against the front fence at a concert with a mosh pit, I growled and threw energy outward. All the demons were off me before any were hit by the energy, but I shot at them as quickly as I recovered my footing. Not a single one was hit.

They were fast. Too fast. I realized that killing the green demon had only been momentary luck because he was too cocky to realize his own weakness, and the rest were not to be stunned into being killed.

Hiei had already killed a few, but I noticed a slash on his arm; if they could injure Hiei, I was pretty sure that, once again, we were screwed.

It was dark out. Or getting there. I heard thunder off in the distance, but it somehow didn't sound normal, and when the sky flashed with black lightning I was _positive_ it wasn't normal.

"Hiei," I shouted over at him, fending off the snapping jaws of a less-intelligent-but-still-powerful cat demon of sorts.

"What? I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm a bit busy."

"We can't beat them all. They're too strong. I don't know about you, but these don't seem like A-class to me."

"A-class?" the ram demoness's voice asked from in front of me a few feet off. She was standing next to the male ram demon, linked onto his overly-buff arm. "Don't insult us, girl. We're Special A-class demons."

"That means nothing to me, lady," I growled at her.

"It means she's close to S-class," Hiei told me, as he was punching his hand through the face of a demon, "but not quite. She has some sort of odd power that makes her higher than A-class, but she still isn't strong enough to be considered S-class."

"Very good," the ram demoness purred to Hiei. "You've been doing your homework. You know, it isn't only me who's a Special A-class. Like I said, _we're_ Special A-class. Most of us are. Those who are only A-class still are to be reckoned with."

Hiei growled. "You think too highly of yourself. If you're so high-class, why don't you fight us yourself?"

The demoness laughed, long and loud, as if it were the most hilarious and ridiculous thing she'd ever heard. "Oh, come now, you must be joking. You're struggling against my men—until you can prove you can beat _them_, I won't grace you with the opportunity to battle me."

And then she said something to the male ram demon she was with, though I couldn't hear her with the growls of the A-class, or _Special_ A-class, demons I was fighting to keep off of me. They both leapt into the air in black blurs and disappeared back into the rift.

"What was _that_?" Hiei snarled, his voice sounding annoyed.

"Guess she thinks she's too high-an'-mighty to stay and watch. I somehow doubt we'll have the luck of never seeing her again."

Hiei growled. "I know we will; I've met her before."

I raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"Yes. Actually, I've fought her once before. Her name is Nirvana."

"'Nirvana'? Weird name." Then there was a thrust against my energy sword larger than the others, and I looked up to see a demon that must have been ten feet tall in front of me; he had a huge ax, which he had swing down against my sword. I gritted my teeth, sliding backward as he shoved against my sword, and my eyes widened as he raised his ax again. It smashed through my sword somehow, cleanly, and rammed into me, throwing me backward roughly thirty feet. I slammed into the concrete wall I mentioned earlier, which I _really_ wished wasn't there then. It crumbled as I blasted through it, but luckily I escaped being crushed by falling debris.

There was suddenly another demon above me, soaring down with his sword raised. He stabbed me near the same exact spot Hiei had when we sparred, and it would have only earned him a wince from me, had there not been some strange sort of black liquid on the entirety of his sword. As it soaked onto my wound, suddenly there was a horrid rush of agony that slammed into me like my arm had just been blasted off by a bomb, and I must have cried out, because I heard Hiei shout, "Ketsue!" over the roar of the other demons.

I heard a 'whoosh' of air, and suddenly the demon that had been holding the sword's head landed next to me, and his body collapsed sideways, twitching. Hiei pulled the sword from my shoulder, tossing it aside, and he slashed through the next on-coming demon as I recovered. I willed myself to stand, but I was stumbling. It didn't hurt much anymore, at least not 'much' for what I was used to now, but I was still air-headed. I figured the black liquid had probably been some sort of poison, not just a pain-inducing toxin.

I put a hand over my shoulder as I struggled to straighten myself, and the strange black liquid ran through my fingers along with my blood. I felt a warmth on my hand, and after the black substance began to flow quicker, I realized that I was automatically healing myself; I wasn't entirely sure how, but it worked, and the poison was extracted from my body quickly, the wound stitching itself up. Convenient.

But as soon as I stood I was thrown backward again, against the concrete wall (Or what was left of it), a demon at my throat. I threw my arm through its chest, ripping my hand back out immediately, and it fell backward. I growled. I knew I wouldn't be able to kill many more, as I didn't think I had killed any Special A-class demons yet.

"Ketsue, leave."

I blinked over at Hiei. "…What?"

"You can't take these demons. You have to—" He cut off as a demon dove for him, and he resumed after a short struggle with it. "—go, now!"

"You can't expect me to let you handle these all on your own! If you needed my help with the other, weaker demons, there's no way you can actually expect me to assume that you'll be able to kill all of these by yourself!" I caught a demon's hands as he came at me, my strength matching his, but his tail whipped around, and I was barely able to dodge its stabbing-motion, and even in that dodge I was still slashed on my left side, just below my ribs.

"I'll be fine. Go!" One look at Hiei's blood-red gaze made me know he was lying—he didn't think he'd survive. But he didn't think he would even if I did stay.

_Why would you do that for me?_ I wondered, but I growled out loud rather than repeating my thoughts. "I'm not going to leave! Are you insane? At least if I stay we'll have a chan—"

"Damn it, Ketsue, if you don't go now I swear I'll turn my sword on you."

I blinked at him, wide-eyed and mildly stunned by his words. I watched as he slashed his energy sword at one of the demons, and I considered a moment, but knowing Hiei's nature he wasn't lying about turning his sword on me.

Thinking I was probably doing something much too sane for myself, I turned and ran back toward the city. I could sense myself being followed by a few demons, so I turned off into an alleyway; no humans were in sight, and I couldn't sense any near, so I threw energy out at the first demon, slamming another against the wall of the building and punching through its face.

A third demon came behind me, clamping its jaws down on my arm, and a fourth bit me just above my shoulder blades. I growled, shooting the third off with an energy ball, and tried to get the fourth off me, pulling him off and throwing him ahead of me. It tore the skin and muscles on my back upward to do so, as his fangs had been in me (His fangs were strange, just like the entity's, and their shape made them slice through my back with ease), and I cried out and fell backward. The demon sprang toward me immediately afterward, and then a funny idea struck me. I reached out and snapped his neck sideways, killing him instantly, but as I looked back at the fight behind me, I suddenly wondered why I had listened to Hiei, and I sighed at my own stupidity, realizing beforehand that it was a dumb idea. I shook my head, but thrust myself forward and back toward the massacre of dead, dying and fighting demons.

I knew nothing I did would make much of a dent in the crowd…unless I tried what I knew Hiei had been readying me for.

I wasn't sure of the exactness of the technique, or how to carry it out; in fact I was sure that if tried to use as much energy as Hiei always did, I'd probably die. But I had to do something anyway.

Summoning all of my energy into my chest, and then throwing it outward into my right arm to gather, I raised my left hand, setting it to hold my right steady and pushing up the sleeve of my hoodie, and thrust all my energy outward. It was a much larger attack than I'd assumed. As soon as less than half my energy had left my arm, I already felt weak, but nonetheless the extreme power I felt in the air was electrifying. Knowing it was mine made me feel so alive I felt as though I could do anything, any task given to me. The adrenaline rush and surge of happiness that was too large for me to even muster a smile made me give the rest of my energy in a long stream of black and red energy. Thrusting from my upper arm and shoulder came a huge strip of blue aura, and as the air around me sparked with power and curled around my enemies, I could do nothing less than shout; I'd certainly feel foolish saying nothing, so I finally understood the reasoning behind anime characters feeling the need to announce their attacks, and I screamed, "_BLACK DRAGON WAVE!_" with the physical energy I had retained, then let the rest of my power vaporize and constrict around the mass of demons, incinerating them all with the sheer strength of the attack.

Feeling invigorated and more alive than I'd ever been, I grinned faintly, before every ounce of energy I had left slipped away spontaneously, and I fell backward as my legs failed, my knees bending, and my entire body went numb. That is, until the rush of pain; it started on my arm, then slid upward to my shoulder, spreading across my shoulder blades, then sliding around my other arm and slipping down my chest and around the rest of my torso, in the end infecting my legs and making my whole body buzz with an electric pain that somehow gave me a thrill beside the agony.

As quickly as it'd come, the pain vanished and slid from my body like liquid, replacing me with a bitter exhaustion I could not even begin to describe, and I gave a single feeble whimper before even my voice betrayed me.

I heard Hiei call something, which I could only assume was my name, but his voice sounded so far off and hollow I couldn't understand it.

Then he was running toward me, and as quickly as I saw him start moving, he was next to me. Everything came in segments, like in a dream, and I was so air-headed I wasn't even sure if I was breathing or not.

In the back of my mind I knew what I had just used wasn't the same exact attack Hiei used, but it was close enough to be called as such; I was just amazed that I had survived. In a way I almost felt as though I hadn't, though. I could faintly taste blood in my mouth, and there was a dampness on the side of my face; I guess I'd smashed my head on something when I crumbled to the ground; with how limp I'd felt, it was no surprise that I couldn't pick my direction. I had to wonder if all the demons had been obliterated, but if they hadn't, no doubt Hiei could take the rest. There couldn't be too many left; I felt them melt away into nothingness. It was as if I had been connected to, or had _been_, my attack. I had felt it's hunger, and I'd felt it rip apart the bodies of the demons and devour them.

I gave a feeble chuckle, which was probably too quiet to even hear, but Hiei could have understood my intent with his jagan. My mind was blank and powerless against fighting the jagan, and if he tried I'd most likely be too exhausted to even be aware of its presence in my mind. _Funny_, I thought, the cause of my laughing, _how slow everything seems when you're this beat._

Hiei was crouching next to me, and I think he was talking, but I couldn't hear what he was saying. I faintly opened my eyes and was able to look at him; there was an expression I'd never seen on Hiei in this lifetime: concern. I felt his hand on my left shoulder, which sent a wave of pain through my body like an electric shock, but it faded and became dull, and I felt energy seeping into my body.

For some odd reason I could hear Hiei's single thought, then, as if I had his jagan. _What was she thinking! That could have killed her! …It probably would have if I hadn't been here!_

I closed my eyes, which were slowly rolling into the back of my head, but there was the slightest bit of relief on my body, and I felt the tiniest, in the most miniscule way, bit less out of it, and I glanced back up into Hiei's crimson eyes, and I noticed again, for not even close to the first time, how handsome they were.

He looked as if he were waiting for a sign from me to see if I could comprehend anything, and I blinked up at him, wincing and trying to move, but his hand on my shoulder restricted any movement.

"You're such an idiot!"

I looked up at him blankly; every bone in my body felt like flimsy lead, and every muscle felt like rubber. I said nothing.

"I told you I would be fine! Why did you come back?"

I grinned faintly. "Because I had to," I replied without reason, the crooked smile still plastered on my lips even though my words were so soft and slurred by exhaustion that I could barely understand them myself.

He paused, as if thinking, then spoke again, in a softer, less harsh tone. "Are you alright?"

_Why would you care about me?_ I couldn't help but think, but I nodded lamely. I couldn't really say much. My voice was harshly broken and raspy, and it hurt to try and talk.

Hiei ran his fingers through his hair and sighed, crouching next to me again. In my exhaustion, I hadn't even noticed him stand. "You know your body isn't ready for attacks like that."

I smiled again, and I couldn't help my body's movements; I reached up and put a hand on the side of his face. "Don't worry about me, it's too unnatural coming from you." I laughed lightly, and he just stared at me, as if dumbfounded.

He reached his hand up and put it on mine, holding it there for a moment, before opening his eyes after briefly closing them, and picking me up. "I don't care what it takes to get it through those humans' skulls," he told me, back in his normal voice, though for whatever reason it still dripped with relief, "but you aren't leaving your house for anything for a while; I don't care if they think you should do 'something' like before. Not like it matters at all compared to your health."

I chuckled oddly, and wrapped my arms around his neck, leaning on to his chest. I suppose when I was weak and mildly delusional it didn't seem weird to me to be so affectionate. "You know, less than twenty minutes ago I thought you didn't care about me."

Hiei smirked lightly. "And what changed your mind?"

"Your voice," I replied without aim; it seemed to me then that my speech didn't need direction or sense, it just needed to be said.

Hiei didn't comment, but for some reason I thought then that I was right. "Don't ever think that," he said suddenly.

I snickered lightly, then coughed and shivered. I'd never been so exhausted. "What, that you care about me?"

"No. That I don't," he replied, his voice strict with a strange hurt in it that I couldn't comprehend.

I was about to say something about how he was only staying for the Chichiro in me, and I alone didn't matter, but my consciousness failed and I slid away from reality.


	17. Kurama, Yusuke and Kuwabara: Meetings

**Authoress's Note PLEASE READ! **'Cause if you don't, I'll…uhm…Well, anyway, this will be momentarily discontinued, AGAIN, because I'm in the process of moving to a new house. But I figured I could cough up one more chapter and leave you hanging. Nyahah. Also, be sure to read the note at the end, as well. I would put the rest here, but it'd give away the chapter.

**Disclaimer:** Neither Hiei, nor Yu-Yu-Hakusho is mine.

**Claimer:** Chichiro is mine, Kaze is BritKit, Aria is FoxWitch. While not all the characters are mine, all writing, storylines and concepts in this fanfiction (Save any YYH references) are.

* * *

It was a very simple revelation I had when I woke. I was his. There is no simpler or more difficult way to say it. In fact, there is no other way to say it. I was his, plain and simple.

I won't say he was mine. He wasn't. I doubted he would ever be anyone's.

But, still. It took me until I woke, tired, sore, and delusional for me to realize that I would do anything for him. I had already established that I would follow him anywhere, but to say I'd _do_ anything for him was something entirely different. It would have seemed odd to me that I loved anyone that much if it were anyone else. But it was Hiei, thus I saw no reason to question it or think of it as strange…it was the most natural feeling I'd ever had.

My body was weaker than I thought it would be when I regained consciousness. I wasn't even aware of where I was, and for a moment I thought I was still asleep for some reason.

Quickly the bitter exhaustion informed me of the annoying fact that, no, I was awake. If I were asleep, I wouldn't have been tired, would I?

"I hope I can trust that you'll never try something like that again."

I didn't move to look at Hiei or to speak, but I felt a small smile twitch at my lips when I heard his voice.

I heard him shift on the branch outside; my ears took in everything, the most miniscule sound. _I don't know,_ I thought, but didn't bother sending the thought to Hiei. Actually, I blocked it from him, amazed my mind was strong enough to. _I just might._

"Can you move?"

I attempted to try, without success. Movement made my body feel like I had just been impaled by a few thousand needles, and my right arm felt like…well, for lack of better words, death. I wasn't aware something could be described as _feeling_ like death until that moment.

"…Ketsue?"

I could tell by the sound of his voice that he either thought that he had been wrong about me gaining consciousness, or that he thought I had gone unconscious again.

"Hiei," I whispered faintly, and I could barely hear my own voice despite my advanced hearing, "I'm awake."

I heard Hiei shift again, and I sensed him inside. "Ketsue, can you move?" I whimpered at the thought. I didn't even want to try again. "That's a no," Hiei muttered, not asking, just stating. "That wasn't the smartest thing you could have done," he mumbled after a moment's silence.

I felt the faint smile appear on my lips. "It was the _only_ thing I could have done," I replied in a soft voice.

"…How did you know how to do it?"

I opened my eyes finally, forgetting momentarily that my body wasn't able to move without pain, and I tried to look at him, but my neck sent another shock of pain through my entire form. I flinched and stiffened, then relaxed slowly, the burn of movement ebbing away. "I…don't really know." I supposed it was because of how Chichiro had explained how to carry out the Kurayami Sakebigoe, but somehow I knew it was more than that. "Did…did Chichiro know how to…do it?" I was amazed at how exhausted I still felt and sounded.

"Yes, actually. But she used the full attack…what you did was something I've never seen before. It was just as strong, if a bit weaker, but it used less energy and if I didn't know what it was I wouldn't have recognized it as a dragon."

He had confirmed my suspicions—what I had used was similar but not exact to the Black Dragon Wave. "Isn't that the same as…" I trailed off, my voice failing me. When you were as tired as I was then, speaking didn't seem very important, and I felt no remorse at leaving off where I did. I didn't even try to tell him telepathically, as my mind seemed to be just as tired as my body. "The same as your sword version of the attack, then?" I re-started after recovering my consciousness, which had been slipping away from me.

"No, your attack was much more powerful than that. Like I said, it was almost the same level as the one I normally use."

"Why didn't you use it?" I mumbled after a moment, suddenly considering.

"…Because if I had used it then, the dragon would have turned on me as well."

"…Why?"

"It would have seen me as close to equal to those, and despite what you may think, it has a mind of its own. If someone close to the level of their opponents combined wishes to summon the dragon to incinerate them, it would offend the dragon. After all, the only possible reason someone would have summoned the dragon then in my position would have been if they had complete and utter faith in its obedience, and that is not something it would appreciate."

I faintly understood what he had said, but I was too out of it to actual make the attempt at forming an intelligent reply. "How come…it didn't turn on me, then?"

"I don't know. For the last time, it wasn't the exact attack, and I'm not even sure it was the same dragon, but it was the flames of the underworld nonetheless and in that case should have turned on you. But obviously it didn't; as to why, I don't have an answer."

I felt myself fading again, but my mind suddenly shoved all exhaustion from itself, and then was blank.

I was standing randomly, and I was aware of the fact that my eyes were closed. When I slowly opened them, I was looking at myself, about twenty feet off, facing a human. I blinked. Not what I had expected to see. I was confused, but I decided to assume I was dreaming. The images themselves were very real, like watching a movie or a play, but I was looking at _myself_, and that didn't seem too damn realistic to me.

"You're that…that bitch who killed Rex, aren't you?"

The version of myself I was looking at then, I realized, was transformed. She wasn't looking at the human, but as he spoke her gaze lifted to glare at him. "Hn. I don't know who this 'Rex' person is. Terribly sorry." The 'terribly sorry' dripped with sarcasm, but nonetheless I could see that she, well…_I_, felt wary.

Then the scene changed, and the other me was facing away from him, and he was raising his arm. I heard Hiei shout 'Ketsue' somewhere, but his voice was like an echo, far off.

Again there was a change, and I watched as the dream-me was randomly on the ground. I was suddenly in that point of view, no longer watching, and there was a roar of pain unlike anything I'd ever felt before on my abdomen, just-below or on the right side of my ribcage—I couldn't tell, as the entire area screamed with pain. I opened my mouth to speak, and I felt my lips moving, but no sound came to my ears and I had no comprehension of what I said. I realized that Hiei was holding me; well, he was propping me up by my shoulder blades—it couldn't really be called 'holding'…more like 'supporting'.

Just as I saw Hiei move to unsheathe his sword, I was suddenly back in my bed again, and the pain on my stomach was gone. I was tired again—I hadn't even gathered that I wasn't exhausted when I had been…er…wherever I had been, but now I was again. The only pain I felt was that of my right arm, and a dull sting from where the demon had stabbed me, and where the other demon had impaled me with his fangs on my back in the last fight. For those minor pains, and the severe one on my arm, I was glad. What I had felt on my abdomen before had been unreal, unlike anything I'd ever felt before. It wasn't the pain itself…it felt _unnatural_, and almost like there was some sort of poison in it that I couldn't detect.

"Hiei?" I whispered, finally deciding to try and speak.

"What?"

I was glad to hear his voice. It sounded normal, unlike what it had in the…had it been a dream? "Did you see that?"

"See what?"

"My dream…did you see it? You said you could see my dreams before, didn't you?" I noticed my voice was clearer and not as exhausted as the last time I spoke, and I wondered if I had been out longer than I had perceived.

"No. Why?"

I knew the no was directed at the first question, not the second. "…Nothing." It had been so _real_. I had never had a dream that real, and the pain I had felt had definitely not been something purely mental.

"Did you have a vision?"

I hadn't even considered the possibility before, but now that he said it, it made perfect sense. "I…don't know. I think I might have."

"What did you see?"

"Nothing that made sense."

"Show me."

I blinked. "What? Show you? How?"

"My jagan, fool. Just open your mind and I can see it for myself."

I looked over at him, not noticing at that moment that I was able to move without pain, and then shrugged, and tried to open my mind like Hiei said. It didn't work for too long, as my mind seemed to have an automatic defense and it shut itself against Hiei's jagan within seconds, but the expression on his face told me it had been long enough for him to see it. "Well? Was that just a fucked up dream, or was it a vision?"

"Hn. There's no way that was just a dream."

"Than what did it mean?"

"Obviously you're going to get injured severely soon," Hiei replied, and I realized that had been quite obvious (as he said), but my mind seemed to be slow. "But I'm not sure why you would have a vision about it. Normally visions are more pressing matters, like…" And then he stopped abruptly, and I turned to him again.

"Like what?"

"Nothing. Maybe it was just a dream."

I studied him a moment, unsure of why he'd lie to me (As it was clear he was). What did he think that vision meant, that I was going to die or something? I recalled briefly that I had seen him unsheathing his sword, with no particular opponent in sight, and remembered that Hiei had killed Chichiro (Which had still yet to be explained to me, as to why), wondering if he was going to kill me for some reason. But I immediately decided the idea was ridiculous, but that still didn't explain anything.

"Hiei?"

"What?"

"I'm sorry."

Though I had not specified, I knew that he had gathered that I meant for not listening to him. "It's fine. Neither of us would probably be here if you hadn't done that."

I smiled lightly. My right arm had begun to throb horridly again, and it stung to move it, so I closed my eyes and let myself fade back into sleep.

* * *

I dreamt of what I had seen again, however this time it was riddled with images of the human I had killed, and I woke with tearstains on my cheeks.

I still couldn't understand it; I felt no guilt toward killing him, but I was quickly starting to assume that it was only because of _which_ human I had killed, and that if it had been any other, a human less-deserving of death, that I would feel guilt.

I could sense Hiei on the roof, which normally meant that my humans had been in my room, or were planning on it. sure enough, my human mother came in not long after I woke.

"Hey, lazy," she said cheerily, and I groaned at the sound of her voice. Not what I wanted to wake up to…more humans.

I watched as she put clothes in my closet and in my drawers, and when she started to look up, my eyes shot downward before I could make contact with her look.

"Hey, Rache? Is something wrong?"

I suppressed my urge to glare at her for calling me my human, even if it was just a variation of it that I didn't mind as much, and I shook my head. "No, I'm just tired. And I'd like to go back to sleep, if you'd mind."

"Rachel." I could tell by her attempted stern tone that, yes, she _did_ mine. "It's almost one thirty. Can you please get up? I'm trying to get you back on a normal schedule gradually."

"Normal for what?"

"School starts in about a month."

I shielded my eyes with my arm in a futile attempt to banish the light from my gaze as my mother flicked the switch. "The light! It _burns_!" I imitated a hissing noise and slithered under the covers, moaning about how I was melting.

I heard her sigh, and then the covers whipped off of me. "Get up n—Oh my _God_! Rachel, what happened!"

I winced, realizing she had probably seen one of my battle wounds, and I opened my eyes, adjusting them to the light. "Huh?"

"Your arm! It's…what happened?"

I raised my right arm, which felt stiff and sore, but it was at least moveable, now. "Uh…I…don't know?" I offered lamely.

"Rachel, how did you—I can't even _think_ of how you could have done that! Were you burned?"

"Uh…something like that."

And then my mom's accusations and question suddenly faded into slurred, incoherent mumbles, and then she stopped talking, a blank look on her face. I knew it was Hiei's doing, and I ignored the various aches in my body and went to my closet, tripping over the small pile of clothes my mom had dropped when her mind went blank, and I pulled on a new outfit and a hoodie, wincing as the sleeve slid over my right arm. _I'm going to need to bandage that_, I thought, mildly annoyed, and then I leaned out my screen-less window. "Okay, Hiei, you can let her wake up now."

"Oh, already up?" I heard Mom's clueless, unaccusing voice behind me.

"Uh, yeah. I decided it wouldn't be fair to make you wake me up again today," I replied sheepishly, glad for Hiei's jagan. "Anyway, I'm…going to go take a shower."

After making my spontaneous excuse-decision to avoid my mom, I pushed past her and left, ignoring her as she asked in a mumbled voice, "How did those get on the floor?"

When I had finished and dressed, I began to brush my hair out.

"Does it ever bother you?"

I blinked over at Hiei as he spoke. "Mmm?"

"To look so different."

"You mean, like with the whole blonde thing?"

"And your eyes are so…human."

"Not really. I don't really remember much from Chichiro's life, so I don't have too much to miss."

"Do you remember Rakal?"

I was about to ask who Rakal was, when suddenly I felt an overwhelming sense of loss, and I had to sturdy myself against the sink.

"I'll take that as a yes."

"I…who is Rakal?"

Hiei blinked at me, confused. "You…don't remember?" He looked me up and down, as if in disbelief. "Your aura changed to complete and utter sorrow as soon as I said his name." I just looked back at him, clueless. "…You really don't remember, do you?"

"Uh…no." I finished brushing my hair and flipped it behind me, moving to grab my toothbrush. "Who was he? …He was a he, right?"

"…Yes. Rakal was a he." Hiei shook his head. "If you don't remember I'm not going to make you; it would be better if you forgot him, anyway."

I grinned deviously, deciding to tease Hiei. "What, was he Chichiro's ex or something? Afraid I'll want to find him instead?"

The seriousness in Hiei's eyes caught me off guard—I had been joking, but it seemed almost as though I was right. "Ex? Yes, I suppose you could say that."

Thoroughly confused, I just shrugged it off, knowing Hiei wouldn't answer if I asked. As I finished brushing my teeth, I reached for my deodorant.

"Why do you insist on putting that on?"

"Why are you asking so many questions, all of the sudden?"

Hiei just switched his eyes from mine to the floor and gave a light, "Hn."

"You mean this?" I held up the object in my hand. "I don't know. 'Cause it smells good, I guess."

"Can't you smell the chemicals?"

"…No. Can you?"

"Well, it's not like you _actually_ think it has natural scents, right? If you were really a demon you would have been able to smell them."

I twitched. "Are you saying I'm not a demon?"

"You don't act like one, that's for sure."

I growled lightly. "Whatever."

"Put on your human's instead," Hiei said suddenly, referring to the deodorant. "The scent of his is tolerable."

I chuckled lightly. "What, you want me to put on guy deodorant?"

"If that's what you call that thing in your hand, then yes."

I suppressed my snickering and shrugged. "Okay, then." I went to the cupboard and grabbed my brother's instead, putting it on, and when I turned Hiei was gone. "….That was weird," I mumbled. I noticed then that I had never really considered what Hiei smelled like, besides the fact that his cloak smelled like leather even though it wasn't. I guess he really didn't have a defined scent, good or bad (Unless you counted the tiniest tinge of the smell of blood that was always on him.), almost like a shadow. Which would make sense—he was a demon, after all. I decided demons were probably somehow able to mask their scent so no one could track them.

As I turned toward the door, suddenly a shock of agony shot through my right arm, and it randomly tensed without my doing so; I winced, gritting my teeth, but the pain didn't fade. If anything, it increased slowly, shooting up from my elbow to my shoulder, and making my right shoulder blade sting.

I flinched as another wave wracked my body with a horrid anguish, and I found my legs weak again. I knelt down, studying myself on my knees, and I held my arm at my elbow, where the burn on my skin stopped. It was unexplainable—it felt completely different than anything I'd ever experienced before, and it made me entirely ignore any other wounds I had them, including the various tooth marks from the demons and the entity, as well as my new sword wound.

I heard my human mother coming down the stairs, and I leaned backward to fall into a clumsy sitting position, and I closed the door with my leg, unable to move either arm.

The human couldn't see me like this, and I wasn't able to recover quickly and act normally. With any other wound, I assume I'd be able to, but not with this one.

Within five minutes my human came to the door and knocked. "Rache? You in there?"

"I'll be out in a minute," I mumbled back; I had gotten myself over against the hamper on the other side of the room—if anyone, such as my mom, came to the door and I replied leaned against it, they would probably begin to wonder.

"Okay. We're going out to Grandpa's for dinner—you want to go?"

"No, I think I'll stay home."

"It'll be fun," she continued, emphasizing 'fun' by beginning the word in a higher tone and then dropping it halfway through, trying to get me to go.

"I'll skip. Now, I'll be out in a minute."

"Alright, alright." Defeated and sounding mildly offended, she left, and I heard her footsteps retreat away from the door.

Sighing, I closed my eyes; my hand had never left its place holding my arm. The pain was slowly fading—very slowly—and I would be able to at least stand and act like nothing had happened.

I smelled bacon suddenly, and through the vents and the crack beneath the door I could faintly hear it sizzling on the stove. _Mmm…bacon._ My thoughts of meat (I was a complete and utter carnivore then, and wouldn't pass up an opportunity for eating meat for nearly anything) willed me to deal with my pain, and I slowly stood, wincing.

_Funny. Nothing else would prod you out of focusing on your pain but the scent of meat_, came Hiei's snide, sexy voice in my mind.

I would have glared at him had he been there, but he wasn't and I was unable to. Sighing again, I went to the door and reached for the knob with my left hand, as my right, though recovering, was still unusable.

"Bacon?" I mumbled as I walked into the kitchen. My dad was standing over a pan that had French toast in it, and next to that pan sizzled bacon. I grinned, then, to my self, I confirmed, "Bacon," again, in a Californian 'dude' imitation voice (If that made sense. Having lived in California myself, if only for a short while, it made sense to me.).

I slipped past my dad, unnoticed, grabbing one of the already-done pieces of bacon, and then grabbed him from behind in a hug. He jumped, then relaxed when he realized it was only me.

Sliding from behind him before he could turn and hug me back, I threw a light-voiced "Good morning" over my shoulder (to which he responded "Good afternoon", seeing as how late it was) and went to the living room. Sighing heavily and laying down on the couch, I made the attempt to ignore the pain on my right arm.

I sat completely still, doing absolutely nothing, for about ten minutes. _Rrg. Being awake during the daytime is so boring._ I glared at my mom as she walked by, but unfortunately she didn't notice the look and didn't stop to amuse me with how easily offended she was. _Not to mention the humans piss me off and there's nothing to do._

_I'd assume the 'nothing to do' was a given, seeing as how you already said you were bored._

_Oh, fuck off,_ I thought without actual spite, focusing on Hiei's energy and jagan to respond. _And I didn't say it, I thought it. Jerk._ Nonetheless, I was glad for his intrusion. At least I'd have something to do.

_Why don't you just make up a lame excuse like you want to go for a walk? It isn't like you're exactly honest with your humans on a daily basis, so I highly doubt you'd mind lying again._

I shifted on the couch and flipped myself over to the other side so I could look at Hiei. _Why don't you distract their minds or something? We can go kill something._

…_Hell no._ I growled to myself, but I had expected that answer with how long he had taken to respond. _With your arm in such bad shape, I wouldn't dare take you out to fight again now. Besides, the rifts have been quiet and insignificant since you killed off all of those A-class demons. Either they're being wary or they're thinking of some elaborate scheme that's guaranteed to piss me off._

I snickered when he said the last line, and my mom walked by again, asking me what I was laughing at. "Tango," I responded lamely, pointing accusingly at my cat. "He was just…being Tango."

"Ah."

I flipped over again to stare at the ceiling when she left, groaning. I was already getting fidgety.

_You've really gotten used to not being here save for sleeping, haven't you?_

_Gee,_ I thought back, _what clued you in?_

_Hn. I could probably distract them and take you somewhere, if you'd like, but not to fight._

_Like where?_

_Beats me. But I assume nearly anywhere would be better to you than here._

_That's true._ I considered. _I don't know, sure. But I'd rather we actually thought about it before we left._

_Why?_

…_Good question. Screw that, let's go._

I went out into the backyard, ignoring my human mother as she stood stock-still in the sunroom, looking dazed and disconnected as Hiei distracted her mind. "What exactly do you do to them?" I motioned my thumb back to my mom as Hiei sprang into the tree, carrying me bridal style as always.

"I just make them forget about you until you come back. It's a bit annoying if someone else mentions you, but then I just make the façade in their mind of you sleeping or being sick. Both of those seem to happen every time you're home, so it's nothing new."

I grinned. "Yeah." I realized we were on the roof of my house. "So…are you going to go?"

"Which way? I know you haven't chosen anywhere, so just pick a direction."

I grinned, thinking that it was mildly like a waste-time car ride, save the fact that Hiei was the one carrying me, not a car.

"Uhm…that way." I pointed, and before I could even lower my arm, I was about thirty feet in the air and sailing downward toward the trees on the opposite side of the road that the school I would attend next year was on.

Without realizing it, I directed Hiei to Mendon Ponds Park. When we got to the front entrance, I told him a way to get to a place called Devil's Bathtub, saying that we should probably make sure from the trees that there weren't any humans around.

We landed in a large tree that I didn't recognize, mostly because it was in a place next to the swamp (The swamp being what was named Devil's Bathtub) and Hiei let me stand. I didn't see any humans, but I knew we hadn't stopped for that reason, and I turned to Hiei. He had one of his deathly-serious concentration looks on his face, and I waited until his countenance returned to normal to ask. "What is it?"

"Kurama."

"…Kurama?" I blinked.

"He's near. I'd say he probably found a rift-tear."

"Rift-tear?"

"What you used to get to Makai and back."

"Ohhh, those thi—hey! I never told you I used that thing!"

"Hn. Well, seeing as how you managed to get from one country to the next before I did, I felt it was safe to assume you had used one."

"…Right. But, anyway, Kurama's around? How do you know?"

Hiei rolled his eyes at me and I rolled mine back, knowing that my question had registered as stupid and useless in Hiei's mind. "Because I can sense it, you fool."

"I could've guessed."

"Could've. If you had a brain."

I ignored the comment, remembering what Hiei had said about caring about me after I had used the Black-Dragon-Wave-like-thing-that-wasn't-quite-the-Black-Dragon-Wave-but-was-close (…And from now on, for simplicity's sake, I'll just call it the Black Dragon Wave.), knowing it was just like when I insulted my friends and he wasn't serious. At least, not fully. "He's alone?"

"What makes you think that?"

"…Well, I assumed, since you only said Kurama—"

"Hn. I just don't care enough to mention the others. They're about as useful as cockroaches, Yusuke being the only cockroach worthy of not being crushed."

I snickered, then quieted as Hiei glanced sideways at me without turning his head. "He'll be here soon," Hiei continued after his 'I'll-kill-you-if-you-don't-shut-up' look faded.

Suddenly there was a flash of lightning, despite the completely clear sky, which was without thunder, and then the sky darkened and faded into what almost looked light nighttime. I stared at the place where the lighting had flashed, and then there was something that sounded a bit like thunder mixed with a tearing sound, plus a bit ot an ominous feel. Kurama, Yusuke and Kuwabarra all tumbled out of it clumsily, and only Kurama managed to flip himself and land in a clean crouch—Yusuke somersaulted when he landed and found himself against a tree, uninjured, but Kuwbarra fell on his head in a way that surely would have broken any other human's neck, and yet he only grunted and shouted, "Urameshi, I thought you knew where we were supposed to land!"

"I did!" came another angry yell, which was from Yusuke's direction, "but I let _you_ cut the stupid portal! You're the one who landed us in midair!"

A heavy sigh came from Kurama, who was standing and brushing off his white-and-purple outfit that reminded me a bit of his dark tournament attire. "Please, stop shouting. If there are humans around—"

"Kurama." I looked over at Hiei as he called down his comrade's name. When the redhead turned to look up at the demon next to me, Hiei continued in a sarcastic tone. "So glad to see you felt the need to bring the idiots with you."

"Good to see you, too," Yusuke grumbled, but then he actually looked up and caught sight of me standing next to Hiei. "Hey, who's the blonde?"

I twitched, about to retaliate about the fact that I hated being called 'blonde', 'blondie', 'goldie', or anything of the sort, but a huge grin showed on Kurama's face. "Chichiro!"

I blinked. _He already recognized me?_ And then, considering, I continued _Well…I guess the only possible way an apparently-human girl would be with Hiei would be if she were the reincarnation of Chichiro._

"Whoa, you're telling me _that's_ Chichiro?" I glared over at Yusuke, my return grin at Kurama fading. It was so odd—Kurama looked nothing like I thought he would (Because, as Hiei said, his hair was quite straight, he didn't look as feminine as I'd assumed, and he was much taller than I thought he would be), and yet I was suddenly over-whelmed with affection toward him, like seeing an old friend. Although I didn't really have my memories back, yet, it was more of the memory of a feeling, and I realized Kurama and Chichiro had been closer than I thought.

"Don't call me that," I growled back, forcing my voice to keep steady, as I was almost as excited to see them as I had been to see Hiei the first time.

"Well, what the heck do you expect him to call you?" Kuwabarra asked.

His voice made me twitch, but I decided not to voice that fact. "Ketsue."

Kurama's demeanor was momentarily almost surprised, then he smirked at Hiei. "Let me guess, that was Hiei's suggestion?"

"…Yeah." I blinked, then figured it was common knowledge of what Chichiro's last name had been, and I shouldn't be surprised that he had guessed correctly.

"How'd you figure that out?" As Kuwabarra's annoying tone stung my ears again, I thought, _Or maybe it wasn't common knowledge._

Hiei sprang downward, and he flickered from view momentarily before reappearing next to the other three, off to the side. I would have glared at him, had I not been transformed already (It came as an automatic to my body that once I sensed a rift or anything close, such as what Kurama and the others had just come through, to revert back to normal.) and been able to leap down without injuring myself, which I proceeded to do. I didn't notice, but it seemed my fear of heights was fading, for though the tree was about twenty or thirty feet high, I had jumped down without issue or fear.

"Just a lucky guess," Kurama was saying as I landed, and I walked over to them, standing next to Hiei.

Yusuke started laughing suddenly, and I glared over at him. "What's so funny?" I could tell by the look on his face that he was talking to Kuwabarra telepathically, though I wasn't sure how they did that without the use of a jagan (Again, I was still relatively clueless then and didn't know telepathic speaking was possible otherwise), and then Kuwabarra started snickering, too, though his was more controlled.

"You're shorter than _Hiei_," Yusuke finally got out between laughs, and I twitched.

"So? It's not like he's as short as they draw him in the series." I glared steely at Yusuke, and the glare seemed to trigger something like fear in Yusuke and he stopped laughing.

"Yeah, but…Chichiro was _way_ taller than Hiei." His annoying chuckling started again. "Heheheh, you're both so short. You actually match this time around."

I could sense Hiei's anger at the last sentence, but he said nothing, and I spoke instead. "Oh, fuck off, you jerk. You're not exactly tall, either."

"Yeah, but I'm not _that_ sh—"

"Give it a rest, Yusuke."

I gave Kurama a grateful glance for shutting the idiot detective up (Finally understanding why Hiei referred to Yusuke and Kuwabarra as cockroaches), before realizing that Yusuke was staring at me. And not my eyes.

"I can see you're pretty much as well-endowed as Chichiro."

I glared at him and crossed my arms across my chest. "You _jerk_!"

He blinked at me incredulously. "No giant energy blast? No shoving me against a tree and threatening to tear my eyes out?"

I blinked back, then growled. "What, do you _want_ me to?"

He laughed. "Yeah, she's definitely Chichiro alright."

I twitched. "And who did you think I would be otherwise?"

"I don't know." Yusuke rubbed his nose absently, which I would learn was a traditional Yusuke thing to do. "You're just so different looking from her, and you're energy's different, and…" He trailed off and shrugged.

"Well, I'm not exactly her," I muttered. "I'm different than her, it's just that she's inside me."

"Dun dun _DUNNN_."

My glare shifted to Kuwabarra.

"Will someone please shut that imbecile up?" I heard Hiei mumbled beside me before I could speak. "I'd do it myself, but I'm afraid I wouldn't be as kind as the rest of you, and I have to admit he does have his uses despite his overwhelming stupidity."

I grinned at Hiei, then watched as Kurama started to walk away, Yusuke following. Hiei followed them, also, even though no one had really said anything about leaving, but I shrugged and figured it was just something else I was missing. As I walked by Kuwabarra, I smacked the back of his head, realizing he was glaring at Hiei, and played innocent as I passed him (Ignoring his feeble "Hey!" knowing he didn't fight girls. I would, of course, learn to use that to my advantage.).

"So…what are you guys doing here, exactly?"

As Kurama began to explain, I did my best to disregard Yusuke staring at me, knowing it was just because he had to get used to my new form (and stop gawking at me like I was a zoo exhibit.) before he would stop. "We sensed a rift open between planes, and I knew that you weren't expert at that type of rift, thus we came back. Things have calmed down in Makai, and the numbers have dropped off considerably, though I'm not sure why." I noted Kurama's fleeting glance at my arm, which I had bandaged before I left with Hiei, but he didn't mention it.

"You knew I wasn't good at that kind of rift?" I stared at Kurama. "What, there's different kinds of rifts? And…how do you know which ones I can close?"

"Of course there's different kinds," Hiei muttered from next to me. "Just because you haven't seen them yet doesn't mean they aren't there."

I fought with myself to keep from rolling my eyes, and my gaze shifted back to Kurama as he spoke again. "I'm only going by what Chichiro could do. She could close this type, but her control over it was meager, and I doubt your body has regained or ever will regain all of her abilities. Anything she struggled with I'm forced to assume you won't be able to do."

I growled, but figured Kurama would know more about reincarnation that me, seeing as how he had already been through it (If Yusuke or Kuwabarra had tried to tell me that, I would have bit their heads off. I would have even considered retorting to Hiei.) and didn't reply.

Hiei suddenly caught my arm, and despite how used to him I was, I still felt my pulse quicken. Despite being carried by him near everywhere and sparring with him, we rarely made physical contact. "Stop. We have to get back to your humans—it's something I can't distract their mind from for long."

I blinked. "Like what?"

Before Hiei could answer, Yusuke cut in. "What do you mean, 'we'? You're going with her? I'm sure she can get back on her own—she's a big girl now." Yusuke's voice didn't sound like he honestly thought I could get back on his own in time, and I realized with annoyance that he was indirectly teasing me by verbally teasing Hiei.

"Shut up, Yusuke." Hiei spoke without tone, like it was an inconvenience to him to have to talk, and because it was in my defense (though it seemed to Kuwabarra (I assume Kurama picked up on Yusuke's motive, but let's face it—Kuwabarra's stupid) that he was defending himself) I immediately lost my anger and forced down a grin. "You seem stupider when you speak."

Hiei swept me off my feet as he always did, and as he sprang upward I could hear Yusuke talking to Kuwabarra, but I ignored their words and sighed. "So, that's the infamous spirit detective," I muttered, "and his sidekick and the spirit fox. I can say I'm not disappointed by Kurama, but Yusuke and Kuwabarra…ugh."

"I have to agree with you on that," Hiei growled without looking at me. "Apologies if I alarmed you with the human thing, but I had to get away from those idiots. I can't stand being around them for very long."

I had been worried that something had happened to someone in my family, but as Hiei explained I gathered that nothing was actually wrong. "You lied just to get away from them?"

"Hn. Of course. I'm sure you won't complain."

"Not at all." I realized we were probably heading back to my house anyway. "Hiei, can you keep their minds occupied even after I get home?"

"Sure, why?" For whatever reason, Hiei using the word 'sure' seemed out of place, being that he was a demon who usually spoke at least slightly more formal that the humans.

"Just not in the mood to deal with humans."

We landed on the roof, but before Hiei could spring down to the backyard, I said, "Let me down here."

"On the roof?"

"What better way to avoid the humans completely?"

"Hn." Hiei just shrugged and let me down, and I went up on of the triangular walls of the roof and sat against the chimney.

I was almost dozing off when Hiei suddenly said, "Ketsue, get up."

I blinked up at Hiei, taking his extended hand (It still struck me as odd that Hiei helped me up. It seemed completely unlike him…well, his anime character, I should say.) "What is it?"

"That rift Kurama mentioned—he managed to close it, but its reponening again. Larger."

"…Great."

And then I jumped as there was, again, the tearing thunder-like sound that came _before_ the lightning, somehow, and I looked up in the sky as the rift began to tear open.

"Ketsue, can you let go of my hand now?"

I blushed furiously and released Hiei's hand, which I had remained latched on to after the thunder, and I assumed I had also tightened my hold on it. "Sorry." Well, it actually came out more like 'Sorr', because another thunder-like noise rippled across the sky, and the rift tore larger and wider, and I began to realize, with widened eyes, that it would reach above my house. As the wind flew across the roof, and the stale scent of Escque and demons hit my nose with venomous force, I flinched, feeling the same chest pains I had when the first large rift opened. "Hiei?"

I didn't even have to ask what that was before Hiei said, "Get ready, Ketsue. Those are no A-class demons."

"What do you mean?"

Hiei's crimson gaze shifted to me, and he said, "They're S-class."

I suppose now it should have been obvious to me that they were S-class, but then I was too preoccupied with watching the largest demon I had ever seen pull itself through the rift, yanking at the sides of the tear in the sky like it was solid, and then, beside it, spilled thousands of other demons, none of which A-class, but close, and I shuddered. With my arm useless to use the Black Dragon Wave again (I figured even that strong of an attack couldn't take down this demon and all of the rest, anyway), and with what Hiei had said about not being able to use it in situations like this, for fear of offending the dragon and having it turn on him, I began to tremble. "Oh, fuck," I whispered hoarsely, just as the huge S-class, which resembled something quite like a freakier version of a tic with extra legs, screeched, shattering the windows of my home (I couldn't hear them, then, as I was too busy trying to keep my eardrums from bursting, but I noted later on).

The tic-like demon turned to me; Hiei was in the air already, and he slashed down at it. As soon as contact was made, there was another strike of lightning without sound, and it began to rain. The demon didn't even seem to notice as Hiei lashed out at it, and I began to wonder if it was actually an S-class. Was there something strong than S-class? After all, Hiei did say he was probably an S-class, didn't he?

But I was unable to further consider, as when I tried to summon energy to shoot at it, I found myself unable to muster any attack. I linked eyes with the demon as it loomed above me, easily one hundred feet high, with maybe a fourth longer body, and I could see just by the look in its shining black orbs that it was restricting me from using my energy.

It began to raise one of its huge, tan legs, seeming almost in slow motion due to the size, but I was also unable to move. It was completely restricting any movement or attack from me, and as it's huge, spiked leg swung downward, I heard Hiei shout, "Ketsue, _get out of the way_!" but his words were cut short in my ears, as I felt one of the large spikes, about six inches thick, drive itself deep into my chest, just below my breastbone and aiming upward, and everything molded together and became bitter black nothingness, laced with agony, and I knew no more.

* * *

**Authoress's Note: **…Don't look at me that way. You know you like making your characters suffer, too. (I don't like letting Hiei get injured, but Ketsue's expendable in the category of pain. XD) Anyway, no she isn't dead, and if you thought she was than I am forced to say you lack brain cells. There's still many more chapters to come, but I had to finish this chapter before my computer got packed with everything else (See first note at beginning of chapter), so what better place to leave off than a cliffhanger? The next chapter will probably (But that's just a probably. I can't be sure until I write it.) be shorter than usual, and most of it won't be directly related to what just happened (You'll see. More visiony goodness and memories.) 


	18. Visions and Booze

**Authoress's Note: **I moved into my new house faster than I thought I could, and when I wasn't packing, I was typing on my laptop (Which, unfortunately, doesn't have internet connection and thus I had to wait to post this), so here's the new chapter much faster than I thought. In this chapter, anything but mind-speech or thoughts are visions, if you can't tell. Plan on seeing them again in later chapters, when the events actually take place.

**Disclaimer:** Neither Hiei, nor Yu-Yu-Hakusho is mine. The song in this chapter, "A Long December" by Counting Crows isn't either.

**Claimer:** Chichiro is mine, Kaze is BritKit, Aria is FoxWitch. While not all the characters are mine, all writing, storylines and concepts in this fanfiction (Save any YYH references) are.

* * *

"_Why did you search for me for so long?"_

"_Because I love you."_

"_No you don't! You love who I used to be!"_

I tried to open my eyes, but failed. The pair of voices faded away, however, and I felt no need to will myself to open my orbs any longer. Somehow, though, I gathered that I had been dreaming, not actually hearing people speaking. The voices had been without tone or body, almost like I had just been reading them, and I couldn't attach them to anyone.

"Idiot. Why didn't she move?"

"Calm down, Hiei, I'm sure it was just—"

"I am calm, stupid fox. It's just beyond me why anyone would stand there and let themselves be impaled on the spiked foot of an S-class demon and not even _try _to dodge."

"…As I was saying, I'm sure it was just because he charmed her body somehow. It is his specialty, you know. I doubt Chichiro—"

"Ketsue."

"Right, I doubt _Ketsue_ would just stand there for no reason. He must have prevented her from moving."

"Hn. At least she was all he wanted. Nothing I tried had an impact on him. If he hadn't left directly after, she and I would have been killed, not to mention most of the living world as we know it."

"Well, it was fortunate, then, that Ketsue was the only one near-mortally injured." Kurama's voice, which bore no direction to me, as my mind was as blank and numb as my body, was sarcastic.

"Hn. She got herself into that position."

"Oh, yes, it was her fault you didn't move quick enough to stop it."

"Don't blame this on me. It isn't like she's dead."

"Only because I was there to partially heal her!" There was a pause, and then Kurama spoke again. "And why did you let her use the Darkness technique? She isn't ready for that. No wonder that S-class was so easily able to charm her body—half of her spiritual power was already gone."

"She used it on her own. I had no part in making her do it. Is _everything_ my fault today?"

"Until you prove that both of those near-death experiences _weren't_ your fault, than yes."

"…Hn."

I gave a muffled sound that could almost be called a half-squeak, and there was a pause between Hiei and Kurama's words.

"…Ketsue?"

"I doubt she's conscious, Kurama. And if she is, she probably can't comprehend much. Her mind is almost completely clear of all thought."

"Hiei, you'll have to distract her humans somehow. With everything. After all, Ketsue's injuries aren't the only thing that they need an excuse for."

"I know. You think of something for the window's; I have nothing."

"They needed to be replaced, I don't know. It isn't like you need to be elaborate or anything."

"Hn."

My consciousness failed again, and their words slid away from me.

* * *

"_Hiei, you'd better go. I can sense a human coming."_

"_Go and leave you? Hn. That doesn't seem to make sense in my mind. After all, I'm not the only demon here."_

_I glared over at him. "Oh, shut up. I know. But I can actually pass off as a human."_

"_And you don't think I can?"_

"_Hiei, a _flea_ could sense your demon energy."_

"_Well, fleas have been known to be vastly more intelligent than humans." I sighed heavily, but he continued before I could try and speak. "Just drop it, Ketsue. If you don't want to have to kill another human, I suggest we both stay here. That way, _I_ can kill it if the need arises."_

"_Oh, gee, that makes me feel better."_

"_Hn."_

"_Agh, damn! More Escque." I rolled my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose, then watched Hiei turn to glare at the walking corpses._

"_I'm really beginning to get sick of them."_

"_You're not alone," I mumbled back. "Hopefully it's only the Escque, though, and no more demons."_

"_I'd be more concerned over entities or upper class demons myself."_

"_By 'demons' I didn't mean _only_ the weak ones."_

"_Yes you did. I can read your mind."_

"…_Shut up."_

_Hiei smirked at me. "You seem to like that phrase a lot, lately."_

"_You should talk. You just told Yusuke to shut up not two weeks ago."_

_Hiei unsheathed his sword and slashed through an Escque, never looking at it or breaking eye contact with me. "Using it one time does not count as liking it a lot. And two weeks is not lately, either."_

_I snorted, summoning an energy sword, and I cut through a group of Escque, bored. "These Escque are simple to kill, but damn are they persistent." I slashed three, which had neatly lined themselves up in front of me without knowing it, in half at once. "You think they have brains," I asked Hiei, "or do you think they already rotted?"_

"_Maybe they have them. I doubt they use them."_

"_You!" I turned to the source of the new voice and groaned._

"_Ningen." I muttered. "Great."_

"_Watch yourself, Ketsue. He looks about the same as the human you killed."_

_At 'the human you killed', the new male human before me widened his eyes, then gritted his teeth. "You're that…that bitch who killed Rex, aren't you?"_

The scene faded, and for a moment I couldn't recall why my chest hurt so badly, but I remembered after only a few seconds about the S-class demon. I felt my body make me moan weakly, almost like an automatic response to the thought. I knew I wouldn't be able to open my eyes or move, so being awake didn't really matter much; I considered what I had dreamt and wondered, simply because the line _"You're that…that bitch who killed Rex, aren't you?"_ sounded familiar, from the vision I had a few days before, if it had been another vision.

"Are you going to take her back to the humans any time soon?" I heard Kurama's voice ask.

"I don't know. I'd rather keep her here and have you around to heal her if the need should arise before I think of moving her."

A chuckle came from Kurama, who sounded to be on my right a few feet away after Hiei spoke. "You almost sounded like you cared about her, just then."

"And if I do?" Hiei growled back defiantly.

"Than I'd be surprised." Kurama's voice was still amused. "You just don't seem to care easily about people, and seeing how she said Chichiro was only inside her and not in control, I'm sure you feel no obligation to care like the rest of us."

"You feel obligated to care?" Hiei asked, sounding almost annoyed.

"I didn't say that. I meant I didn't think you…never mind. Forget it. Of course _I_ care about her, Chichiro or not, but I'm much more outgoing than you. It just seemed odd for you to say the same so quickly, after only a couple of months."

"I never said I cared about her. I only asked what you'd say if I did."

I heard Kurama laugh again. "Right, whatever you say, Hiei."

"Hn. Obviously you think I do."

"Yes, I do think you care. But I see no reason to force you to admit it."

"Well, I never said I didn't care, either."

Kurama's chuckling restarted, but he didn't reply to Hiei.

I wasn't even aware I was falling asleep, but I when I woke I could feel that time had gone by.

"She's pretty stable now, don't you think?"

"Yes. I'd say she's movable now."

"…Hiei?"

"What?"

"Look after her."

"Stop getting so attached so easily, fox. You barely knew her for twenty minutes before this happened."

"True, but I know whose reincarnation she is, and also, if you of all people can care about her, than obviously she's something."

"Hn." There was a long pause of silence, then Hiei spoke again. "I will. But she has to stop being stupid."

A light, slightly fake sounding laugh came from Kurama's direction. "You mean she has to stop worrying about you."

"Yes. She seems to bear no concern over her own welfare anymore."

"A bit like you."

Hiei offered no response, and then I felt arms slip beneath my knees and my shoulders, and as my body was moved I felt myself automatically wince as a pain ran through my chest.

"I'm impressed with her."

"Hn. Why's that?"

"Her body is far more human than I thought, and though she's able to transform she's still relatively fragile. I didn't think she'd be able to withstand a wound like that."

"Thanks to you, fox, she can."

"You know what I mean. Any other in her position, with her body, surely would have died. Even with my healing powers."

"Perhaps." I felt the tip of Hiei's knee against my back, and I assume he had his leg against some sort of ledge. "But you were the same as her when we first became allies. Your body was weak, but you were able to withstand injuries far past what your body should have been able to take."

"True. I guess it's just a fox thing."

Hiei gave a 'hn'-like short laugh, and then I felt wind on my face, and I could no longer sense Kurama near.

I slipped away into nothingness not long after.

* * *

_"K-Keicchirin?" I stared at my brother in disbelief. "But why…why are you trying to kill Hiei?"_

_"He killed you." There was a venom in his deep voice, and his flicked his head to the side to swish a lock of long, wavy black hair from in front of his icy gray-blue eyes. "I'm just returning the favor."_

_"It wasn't his fault, brother, it was mine."_

_"Even if it was your fault, he should have died before killing you."_

_"He didn't know!" I cried desperately._

_"It doesn't matter!" Keicchirin spat back, then, as I withdrew from his harsh voice, he relaxed, giving a long, low sigh before continuing in a more level voice. "If it had been me, I wouldn't have fallen for your trick. And even if it was someone else, it still had your scent, and Hiei should have…he should have not been able to kill you just for that fact."_

_"Keicchirin…brother…"_

_"I have to kill him, Chichiro. Don't you get it? I have to before he does it again!"_

_"He won't do it again, I promise you. Please, just listen to me."_

_"You're wrong. He must die!" Keicchirin, who had previously been standing completely still, was suddenly gone, and as I finally caught sight of him, he was sailing downward, his golden-hilted sword raised, and swinging downward at Hiei._

_"Keicchirin, _NO_!"_

My eyes shot open. I guess after a few days of not having your eyes open, your pupils dilate greatly, and the light stung my eyes horridly, even though it was only a minor amount of brightness. "Ketsue, you're awake."

I turned my head slowly to look over at Hiei; he was positioned on the trunk beneath the window, watching me with his cold, blood-red eyes, only I noticed that right now they weren't very cold.

"Hiei." A weak smile cracked my lips, and I found myself unable to move, though this time it was not because of a spell or charm, it was simply from exhaustion.

"How do you feel? Are you in pain?"

"A bit." Quite a bit, actually, but I figured Hiei didn't need to know. "Better than earlier, though."

"'Earlier'? Were you awake before?"

"Only briefly, and I wasn't able to open my eyes or anything."

"Ah. That must have been when Kurama thought you were awake. Amazing, the fox was right."

I mustered a small smile, then winced as my body gave me a sharp reminder of my injury when I tried to further turn toward Hiei.

"Don't try and move. You're injured badly."

"Yeah…I forgot about that for a second." I felt my eyes closing against my will, and I allowed them to (More because I had no choice than anything) for a moment before I opened them again. My wound was perfectly centered in my chest, and I was suddenly quite glad for the fact that the S-class demon didn't have perfect aim—if he did, I doubted I would be alive"Well, at least it appears he missed my heart," I mumbled, figuring otherwise I wouldn't be there.

"Grazed it, actually," Hiei corrected. "Obviously it wasn't as serious a wound as I thought; I didn't expect you to be awake yet."

I just closed my eyes and yawned, attempting to keep myself from yawning too widely for fear of aggravating my wound. "How did you kill the demon?"

"I didn't. It seems he was only there for you, and after stabbing you he decided to leave."

"Convenient."

"What's convenient is that Kurama had arrived that day; without him, I have my doubts that you'd be alive."

"Why?"

"You don't think your body healed that far already by itself, do you? He used his healing plants to sew you up a bit. It shouldn't scar, thanks to him."

"Well, the scar isn't what I would have worried about," I muttered back, yawning a second time. "How long was I out?"

"Three days, maybe four. I don't keep track."

"Wow, that short?"

"Like I said, I didn't expect you to be awake yet, either."

"Mmm." I shifted my legs a bit; they felt stiff, and I assumed I had been in the same position for a while. "I thought you couldn't keep the humans occupied for more than two days?"

"Their minds have grown accustomed to the jagan and are more easily moldable."

"Great. Now you can brainwash my parents anytime you want." I wasn't even sure I was being sarcastic.

"Heh."

A faint smile appeared on my lips at Hiei's short 'hn'-like laugh, and I closed my eyes. "As much as I hate to, I think I'm going to—" A third yawn snatched my words away for a moment. "—have to pass out again. My body doesn't seem like it wants to stay conscious." As soon as the word 'conscious' began to fade, I knew I had called it just in time, and my sight returned to black as I slid back into the painless bliss of sleep.

* * *

"_I guess the winter makes you laugh a little slower_

_Makes you talk a little lower about the things you could not show her_

_And it's been a long December and there's reason to believe_

_Maybe this year will be better than the last_

_I can't remember all the times I tried to tell myself_

_To hold on to these moments as they pass._"

I didn't open my eyes; I saw no need to. But as I heard the soft singing close to me, I had to wonder whose voice it was. It sounded almost like Hiei, but the thought of Hiei singing was a bit out of place. Sexy and an inviting idea, but out of place.

"_And it's one more day up in the canyon_

_And it's one more night in Hollywood_

_It's been so long since I've seen the ocean…I guess I should_."

I recognized the song when the next part finished, and I recognized that the song was over, minus the 'na na na na's that were traditional to the tune, though those were being hummed. I finally willed my orbs open, and I looked sideways, surprised to find that the sound of the voice was Hiei. Hiei? Singing? It seemed oddly natural, for some reason, despite the fact that, as with many other things, the thought of his anime self singing would have made me laugh.

"Hiei?"

"Ketsue. Awake again, I see."

"You were…singing?"

"Yes." He glanced over at me. "Why?"

"It was nice." I smiled at him lightly, still feeling weak.

Hiei mustered a small smile back, which I was surprised to see, as Hiei rarely genuinely smiled. Smirks and sadistic grins were far more common.

I flinched as a wave of pain gave me the annoying reminder of my wound, and I closed my eyes against it. "You think he'll be back?" I asked after the pain had subsided, at least mildly.

"Who?"

"The S-class demon."

"Probably."

"We'll have to learn how to kick his ass, then, in the meantime," I mumbled. "'Cause if you can't kick his ass already, he must be strong."

"Hn."

"Where's Kurama?"

"Probably off closing a rift, and if there's no rifts to close than maybe he's actually acting like a normal apparently-human." The 'apparently-human' was said like it was a common label, like 'non-human'. "Why do you ask?"

"I want to thank him for saving me." Hiei didn't respond, and I finally said, "And thanks, Hiei. I know you're also why I'm still alive."

"Kurama's the one who healed you. Don't thank me."

"But you got me to Kurama. Don't be so modest."

"Hn."

Another wave of pain flashed through me, and I wished that I could go off and fight something, but I had to admit I was in no shape to. My right arm was still battered and quite useless, and now with this new sword wound… "Ugh. I wish I could get my mind off this pain with something."

"Like alcohol?"

"Hah hah, very funny," I replied flatly.

Hiei just stared at me incredulously. "What's funny?"

"…You were being serious? You'd actually let me drink at such a young age?"

"I'd hardly call eight thousand young."

"I mean my body, smart ass. My body is only thirteen."

"So?"

"Are you trying to talk me into drinking alcohol?"

"Maybe."

"I don't know…I've always been against drinking. Especially underage."

"Hn. You were also against killing not too long ago."

"Must you always bring that up?"

"Hey, drinking isn't near as bad as killing. And if you can get away with a kill, I'm sure you can get away with a drink."

"…You're seriously trying to talk me into this."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"You've yet to enjoy the delights of being drunk in this body. You should sample them, better sooner than later."

"That sounds so odd, coming from you."

"…Why, exactly?"

"I don't know. You don't strike me as a drinker."

"Hn. And what do I strike you as?"

"A lot of thing. But not a drinker."

"Do you want alcohol, or not?"

"Oh, now you're _offering_ it to me?"

Hiei just kept eye contact and said nothing.

"…Okay. Uhm. Sure."

I fell asleep after Hiei left, I assume to grab alcohol, and when I woke up Hiei offered me a bottle of a completely clear liquid. I blinked, reading the label. "Smirnoff? What the hell is Smirnoff?"

"Light alcohol. I figured you wouldn't want anything strong."

It struck me as funny that I was drinking for the first time, not only because I had a hole in my chest, but I was drinking with Hiei and _because_ of Hiei.

"What's it taste like?"

"I don't know. I never had it. Kurama lets Tamiko drink this, though, and Tamiko's a serious light weight."

"Tamiko?"

"You don't remember Tamiko?"

"The name rings a bell, but no."

"She was Chichiro's best friend in Makai, before me and her were together."

"Ah." I twisted off the bottle cap, then tried to sit up, failing miserably. "…Damn. I hadn't thought about having to sit up to drink."

Hiei sighed, then the pain on my chest was gone. "Now try."

I blinked, then slid myself into a sitting position, my body feeling heavy nonetheless. "How'd you do that?"

"Same as the last time."

The pain returned, and I realized Hiei had taken it so I could sit up. I figured for Hiei my look was gratitude enough, as he normally disregarded any form of thanks. I sniffed the bottle, which smelled like sour apples (Which would make sense, as the flavor on the bottle said Green Apple). "It smells like a Jolly Rancher," I said with a grin, "and it's alcoholic. That's so awesome."

"Hn."

I didn't realize until then that Hiei had a bottle of his own, and I blinked. "What do you have?"

"Just some sort of vodka. Tastes horrid, like rotten peaches."

"Than why'd you get it?" I wondered briefly after I said 'get it' _where_ he had gotten it, but didn't ask.

"Because having the same thing every time is boring."

I took a tentative taste of the Smirnoff, found it was delightful and tasted much better than a Jolly Rancher, and took a swig.

I didn't notice until I was about an inch from the bottom of the bottle that it was a pint. Which, for my first time, was quite a lot. But at that point, I was beyond caring. I shifted a bit on my pillows, ignoring the pain on my chest relatively well, and then a(booze-induced)n idea struck me. "I think it would suck to be a pillow. I mean, it isn't the concept itself, but having to be confided to a pillowcase all the time—such a small, closed in space, you know?"

Hiei just stared at me a moment, and snatched the bottle from me before I even saw him move. "All right, obviously you've had enough."

"Oh, come on, Hiei, there's like a foot…I mean, a centim—I mean an inch…left." I found the fact that I stumbled over my words hilarious for some reason, and I had to calm myself before I could even hear what Hiei was saying.

"That inch could be enough to make you pass out." Hiei sounded completely sober, despite the fact he had long since finished the vodka bottle. "I guess I should have paid better attention to how intoxicated you were."

"But it's so awesome," I mumbled, the word 'awesome' coming out like 'awdum'.

"…I can see that. But you're done."

"Fine." I was randomly attacked by exhaustion. "Whoo, I'm kind of tired."

"And generally, just feeling tired when drunk means you'll pass out at any time. Why don't you lay down." It wasn't a question, it was a command.

"But I don't want to."

"Ketsue, lay down."

I sighed, louder than usual to emphasize my annoyance, but my crooked grin never left my face. I slid down the bed, wincing only once at the pain and turned on my side, getting comfortable, before saying, "Hey, Hiei?"

"What?"

"I think had more of those vision-things yesterday." 'Yesterday' sounded like 'yeserday'.

"Yesterday? Are you sure you aren't thinking of a few days back when you were healing?"

"Maybe…I don't know."

Hiei sighed. "Alright, what were they of?"

"Iunno."

Hiei sighed a second time. "Than open your m—well, actually, your mind is pretty open now anyway. Just conjure the images of the 'visions' as best you can."

I did as I was instructed, and Hiei looked annoyed afterward. "What?"

"Keicchirin. He's done this before, but I didn't think he would again."

"Did what?" ("What" somehow came out as "whae".)

"Tried to kill me."

"Why did you kill me, again?" I asked as my thought chain switched direction.

Hiei looked over at me, his eyes alone telling me that his voice was not deceiving—he was completely sober. Just his look alone sobered me up considerably. Then he randomly broke eye contact and looked away, simply giving a soft, "Hn."

"I see how it is," I muttered, and I was about to repeat what I had just said for emphasis, when my vision randomly faded to black.

* * *

When I woke up I knew I had passed out because of my intoxication, and I sighed. I was completely sober, and I figured that was a good thing, minus the fact that I actually noticed and cared about the pain. 

"Ketsue, are you up to closing a rift?"

I rubbed my right eye and yawned, turning to look at Hiei. "Maybe, why?"

"Because I need you to."

"Can't you just get Kurama?"

"No, he's already closing one."

"Can't you just use him after he closes the one he's already closing?"

"Look, if you don't want to, say so. But if you can't yet, I don't want to waste time around here waiting for your answer."

"Right, sorry." I shrugged. "Sure, I guess. Let's go."

I started to sit up, but my chest wound suddenly felt as though the spike was still in it, and I flinched and collapsed backward.

"Never mind. You're obviously not healed enough."

"No, I can go."

"Ketsue—"

"I'll go. Come on."

I forced myself into a painful sitting position with a wince, and I was about to try and stand when I felt Hiei's arms beneath my legs and shoulders like always, and next thing I knew I was in the air and heading toward the city. "All I need you to do is to close the rift. You don't have to stand."

I rubbed at my eye again, which was blurry, and I hoped I wouldn't have one of my usual blind flashes. "I didn't do anything incredibly stupid last night, did I?" I asked. I had always wondered how I would do with alcohol, and though I remembered everything, I wanted to make sure what I remembered was all that had happened.

"No, you didn't. But you did insist upon telling me about ten times how wonderful I was and that I had the 'coolest eyes to ever exist'."

I felt myself start to blush and I buried my face against Hiei's coat and sighed heavily. "Aww, damn, I thought I remembered everything."

I felt Hiei's chest move as he laughed lightly, and he said, "Don't worry about it, that's all you said otherwise."

I could sense the rift as we neared it, and I looked up at it as I felt us pass beneath it. It was a strange rift, in an almost horseshoe-like shape. "I've never seen one like that before," I told Hiei. "Are you sure I'll be able to close it?"

"I don't know, but obviously you're being affected by the demon energy coming from it."

"Why do you say that?"

"Listen to what you're saying, closely."

I blinked. "What do you mean?" I asked, but as I replayed in my mind what I had said I realized it hadn't been in English. "…What language am I speaking?"

"Demon, obviously."

"I've never heard demon," I muttered, "I wouldn't know."

"Well, do you think that you'd be affected by demon energy and start talking German? Use your brain."

I sighed, closing my eyes. My mind was completely recovered from my injury, no longer blank and tired, but my body was still weak and exhausted.

I didn't plan to, but I slid into sleep. Hiei woke me after about five minutes of my dozing, when we were farther to the center of the rift. "Sorry, did I fall asleep?"

"Clearly."

I grinned weakly, then looked up at the rift. "Hey, there aren't any demons coming from this."

"No, there were only Escque from this one, and I already killed them all."

"Oh, good. For a second there I thought you were going to tell me I was going to have to fight."

"Hn. That's the first time in a while you haven't wanted to fight."

"I never said I didn't want to. I just know I can't; I'm too weak."

Hiei just 'hn'ed again, and I felt my mouth begin to recite the strange words in the language I didn't recognize to close the rift. I noticed quickly that the words repeated themselves often, in a loop, but when the rift was near closed and I was beginning to feel weak (I still had no energy, physical or spiritual, and just closing this single rift was difficult to do.) the loop changed and broke off into longer words (The main loop consisted of two, three, and occasionally four-letter words.) that sounded somehow familiar.

After the last flash of thunder-lacking lightning showed, and the rift sealed completely, I felt an extreme shock of pain to my sword wound, along with a sudden wave of exhaustion far worse than before, and I whimpered, curling inward involuntarily in Hiei's arms; heat infected my body as well and made me feel light headed. Completely out of it, I noticed that someone was talking, but I couldn't hear them, as my attention was shot by the pain. Then, finally, the heat and pain faded, mildly, and I was able to open my eyes.

"Ketsue, can you hear me?" His tone told me he was repeating the line.

"Yeah, I just…" I found myself unable to continue and finish, and my eyes rolled backward; I was still conscious, and I was aware of everything, but I could do nothing.

"Ketsue?"

After a short while, I opened my eyes again, though I noticed that there was new energy flowing into my body. I turned my gaze slowly, wearily, to Hiei; he had his hand on my arm, giving me some of his energy, but his eyes were focused elsewhere, distracted. I knew he didn't notice that I was normal again, and I didn't alert him to the fact, either. My body responded to my command when I tried to move my arms, and I pushed myself up into a sitting position, earning Hiei's glance again (I was no longer in his arms. I didn't know when he had landed on the building we were on and laid me down, but he was now crouching beside me rather than holding me.). I surprised myself as much as I believe I surprised Hiei when I wrapped my arms around his neck, and I ignored my pain and how odd the situation seemed. It seemed that now I always had the random tendency to want to embrace or show affection to Hiei when I was injured, maybe because my thoughts were so wispy and simplified. I felt Hiei's arms return my embrace, though nether of us said anything.

Several minutes later found us in a similar position, but not the same, with Hiei sitting and supporting me against him. My eyes refused to open after I closed them again, and I could feel myself falling asleep quickly.

"I should have known you weren't ready to try and close a rift yet," Hiei mumbled. "I should have known better than to listen to you—you don't seem to know what you are and aren't capable of. You just know what you _want_ to be capable of."

"It's okay," I whispered back. "Like you said, it was my fault for not knowing what I'm able to do right now."

"I never said that."

I just made a sound a bit like 'hn' and 'mmph' mixed as a reply.

"I'm sorry if I ever seem cruel to you."

I didn't move to reply for a moment, then said, "What?"

"Do I ever seem cruel to you?"

"Yes. I have to admit, you can be a complete jack-ass." I could sense Hiei was going to speak, but I cut him off to continue. "But that's one of the things I love about you. Some people are just meant to be sadistic jerks."

"'Sadistic jerk'?" I could feel Hiei smirk. I didn't know how I _felt_ it, but I did. "I like that. Seems to sum me up fairly well."

"Mmm."

"…Ketsue?" I didn't respond, and just repeated a softer 'Mmm?' as a reply. "I do care about you." He sounded almost as if it was a confession.

I just smiled. "I know." My smile became a small grin. "It's hard to tell, sometimes, but I know anyway."

"I don't know if I love you, though."

His words then surprised me greatly. It had never (Well, I have to admit, it had once or twice, but I had never actually fathomed it possible outside of my thoughts.) crossed my mind that there was the possibility of Hiei loving me; caring was surprising enough…loving was astounding. And the fact that he had said it in a way that hinted that he thought he might was even stranger, almost amazing to me. "I…didn't know there was even a might," I mumbled.

"You should have," Hiei muttered back. "After all, even if she is just inside you and not _you_ exactly, Chichiro is part of you. I had to consider at one point or another."

I smiled lightly, almost disappointed he had mentioned Chichiro as a reasoning. I felt completely disconnected from her sometimes, almost as if she was only a spirit who decided to use my body, not my yami and part of me. I almost felt trapped by the fact that she was part of me, like I wanted to be my own self, and not have to be Chichiro or like her. Sometimes, most of the time, I did feel like I was, but other times, like just then, I felt restricted and bound to Chichiro. She was like a burden. I hadn't felt that way until I had told Hiei I loved him.

I didn't respond to Hiei, and after a few minutes of silence, I felt Hiei's arms behind me rather than his torso, lifting me, and as I leaned on to him, flickering in and out of dozing, I finally let myself sleep.

* * *

**Authoress's Note:** Like I said: shorter than usual. The next chapter will be normal length (Probably. Haven't finished it yet, so I don't know for sure.) again. Also, if you sent any e-mails or reviews (The reviews were expendable, because I can just check online) after November 20th, I didn't get them—my e-mail address spontaneously combusted when I moved, but now it's back up again and can receive crap once more. 


	19. Truths and Trust

**Authoress's Note:** Yes, I am alive everyone (Barely, but enough to write this.). Sorry for the long delay between chapters. I've just been going through a bit of a tough time, and I've been vastly too preoccupied to finish up any chapters of any of my fanfictions. However, the next chapter of Kisami and the next chapter of Voices of the Lost Realm Book V: Scars should be up soon. Also, I've gotten myself back into this fanfiction again as well (Being that I got a new laptop for Christmas, I decided I better give it some good ol' fanfictions to store.), so you can expect fast updates again like before (However, that goes for the chapter after this one and beyond—I can't guarantee the next chapter of this will come fast…I'm still not sure I'm motivated enough to type long chapters for fanfictions. I do have a majority of the next chapter done, though, so it may be up soon.)

**Disclaimer:** Neither Hiei, nor Yu-Yu-Hakusho is mine.

**Claimer:** Chichiro and Ketsue are mine, Kaze is BritKit, Aria is FoxWitch. While not all the characters are mine, all writing, storylines and concepts in this fanfiction (Save any YYH references) are.

* * *

I acted differently around humans than I did with Hiei and other non-humans. Almost arrogant. I could no longer act like myself around them; I saw them as inferior beings, and though I had little pride in myself or anything I did, I still saw them as lower beings than I. They were weak and clueless, like me only a few months back.

I had first noticed it when I had spoken with the human I had killed; I had acted like he was a lower, stupider creature (Which might have been true.). I noted it again later on, with my human parents—my view of them had sunken drastically. My views were becoming less black and white with only considering age and status in families, and becoming more focused upon physical and spiritual power.

I barely ever missed my humans anymore, and I never wanted to be home. When I woke, the first thing I thought was, _Damn. Here again._ I didn't think 'I'm home', just 'here'. If my thoughts of 'home' had been shifting before, they were completely changed now—I didn't even almost consider this place home. It just flat out _wasn't_.

"Are you feeling alright?" I looked over at Hiei, pulling myself up. "Your energy has improved incredibly."

"Yeah." I mustered a smile for him. "I'm feeling much better."

"Good enough to fight?"

My smile became genuine. "If you'll let me."

"I was suggesting it. What do you think?"

Even as we were (Well, Hiei was. He was carrying me as he always did.) leaping toward the countryside, a different way than I recognized from any other time, my eyes continued closing against my will. I was amazed at my exhaustion; it seemed almost as bad as when I had initially used the Black Dragon Wave, but not quite to that extent.

I could tell that Hiei thought I was asleep. He carried me two different ways—deliberate and exact one where we were going if I was conscious, and loosened up and less strict when he thought otherwise. I didn't hint that I was awake, and kept my eyes closed after I realized Hiei thought I was asleep—after all, it didn't matter to me to try and retain consciousness if Hiei didn't think I needed to, and since he wasn't trying to wake me up, I figured dozing off wouldn't be too much of a crime.

I almost slipped completely into sleep once, but it was just as Hiei was slowing, and I willed myself awake. "Where are we this time?" I asked in a low mumble.

"Somewhere."

A small grin cracked my lips. "Gee, thanks. How descriptive."

"I thought you'd appreciate that answer," Hiei replied in a completely serious tone, and I continued grinning, shaking my head at him. After a moment, Hiei said, "Can you stand? Have you tried yet?"

"No. I guess I should have tried to before we came all the way out here to fight, right?"

"It wouldn't be too much of a loss if you couldn't yet; I brought you here to spar, not battle demons, so there's no obligation."

I yawned, then fidgeted in his arms and indicated I wanted to try and stand, which he allowed me to do. My knees threatened to buckle, but Hiei let me use his shoulder to steady myself on, and finally my legs obeyed me and no longer felt like rubber, and I stood on my own.

"Well, that's over with." I looked up at Hiei, and I could feel that my eyes looked glassy; I don't know how I _felt_ it, but I did. "And you expect me to fight?" The thought of me fighting then was almost amusing.

"I don't expect anything from you right now but to try. See if you can summon energy."

I allowed another yawn to escape, smaller this time, and then I raised my hand, and a strip of red energy stretched out and flattened, then solidified and became a sword. Nodding, as if mentally putting a check on a checklist I didn't have, I absorbed the sword again and began to summon an energy ball, which I succeeded in doing as well. I had done both of these things with my left hand, as my right was feeling better (And my better, I only mean mildly. It didn't feel even close to fully healed, or even slightly healed, and I had to wonder if it ever would.) but I still didn't think it would be safe to try and summon anything from it.

"Well, obviously I can," I replied. I half expected Hiei to tell me to try and summon from my right hand, but he didn't, nor did he respond. I glanced over at him, but his gaze was elsewhere, across the field. I paid attention, then, to where we were and gathered that we were just somewhere in the middle of no where; there were fields and small hills everywhere, but no buildings save for a single, burned down barn. I saw no need to make Hiei talk back to me, so I just wondered what to do until his attention had returned.

I lifted my right arm at the elbow, and flexed my hand, and the thought of flinching only crossed my mind—my countenance remained normal. I flexed again, clenching my fingers tighter, and found my arm to've drastically improved.

"Getting better, I see."

I looked up at Hiei, relaxing my hand and lowering my arm. "Yeah. It should be as usable as normal in a few days." Then, noticing the tiniest hints of doubt in Hiei's eyes, I said, "Or so I assume."

"I won't make you spar me today," Hiei told me, as if disregarding the previous one-response conversation. "It would be good training for you to fight me wounded, but I don't want to risk further injuring you. After all, you'll remember that I have the tendency to do that when we spar."

The image of Hiei's sword piercing through my left arm played casually in my mind, and I nodded. "Yeah, can't really forget that." I sighed. "If I didn't agree with you on the whole 'further injury' thing, I would tell you I wanted the training." I breathed out slowly, in an almost-sigh, and sat down on the cool grass, continuing. "But unfortunately, I do." I looked up at him, squinting at the sun, which I wasn't too used to seeing then, being that I normally went places with Hiei at night. "What does that leave us to do?"

Hiei shrugged, and I submitted to the fact that I would probably have a few boring days while I healed before I could do any real fighting again. "Should we just go back?"

"You know as soon as you set foot in that house again and find yourself unable to sleep that you'll only ask me to take you elsewhere," Hiei muttered back.

I knew he was right and nodded. "Okay, what do you suggest we do, then?"

Hiei's eyes slid over to my right arm. "Can you use energy with your right arm, yet?"

"No."

"Have you even tried?"

"No, but I know I can't."

A smirk found Hiei's lips. "So, you're finally using your instincts."

A grin found mine. "Yes." I looked up at the sky. "It's odd…I knew I was different my entire life, and when I turned twelve, Aletta re-awoke within me and told me I wasn't human. But…I've always still thought of myself as one. Or, at least, closer to one than I should have thought."

"And now?"

"And now…I know what I am again." My smile felt natural for the first time in a long while. Smiling at Hiei had felt right, yes, but never natural—I guess I'm just not a smiley person, and wasn't one then, either. "It feels good. To remember."

Hiei didn't reply, then finally he said, "I suppose it would."

It occurred to me that Hiei was probably completely clueless on the subject—it wasn't every day that a demon forgot they were a demon for over ten years, and I was sure Hiei hadn't died and been reincarnated and been stuck in the situation I was in. "Hiei?"

"What?"

"Why am _I_ a demon?"

"…What do you mean by that?"

"I was born into a human…well, semi-human body, and up until a few months ago, I didn't even know Chichiro _existed_. Why is my body a demon, now? I'm not Chichiro. You know I'm not."

"Of course I do, Ketsue. I'm not quite sure what you don't understand, though." Hiei looked as though he figured the entire concept of reincarnation was blatantly obvious which, I guess to a demon, it was. But not to me—I didn't have Chichiro's memories, still, and reincarnation was still fairly much a mystery to me, with how it worked, etcetera. "Chichiro chose your body to be joined with before you were born, and weaved her spirit energy into your developing soul and made you one, but she was still alive when she did that, and even after she—"

"Wait, _what_? She did the whole spirit-weave thing when she was alive? I thought you had to reincarnate after you died. I mean, come on, that's the _point_."

Hiei sighed. "Chichiro wasn't like Kurama, if that's what you're gathering that from. She planned ahead. She weaved her spirit energy into six human souls, and she would choose after she died which to use."

"How did she know when to do the weave-thing?"

"She had visions, fool. How else?"

"She knew when she would die? Then…didn't she know how? And—"

"Visions aren't always something purely physical or visual. She could sense things. Such as her own death approaching."

"…Oh."

"As I was saying before, after she died she waited and monitored the six and decided which was best. The first was killed by Keicchirin, the se—"

"_What_!"

"…'The first was killed by Keicchirin'," Hiei quoted, pretending he actually thought that was why I had asked 'what', and continued. "And the—"

"What do you mean, Keicchirin killed her? Why?"

"Because she wasn't the one he chose. He knew which humans Chichiro had chosen, and he decided which he wanted her to use as a reincarnation and killed the other two. Three of them died without his intervention."

"…That's…kind of twisted."

"_Keicchirin_ is kind of twisted," Hiei muttered. "Anyway, he killed the other two, and afterwards, Chichiro remained in spirit world with Raya—"

"Raya?"

Hiei looked over at me, then sighed. "You really don't remember _anything_, do you? She was our child."

"Ch-child?"

"Yes. Chichiro was pregnant when she died."

"…Right." The notion of having a daughter made me light headed, but I forced myself into thinking, _No._ I _didn't have a daughter, Chichiro did. So…no reason to be so weird about it, right?_ I knew Hiei had mentioned something about a child when I saw the vision of Chichiro dying when Hiei first used his jagan to give me my sight back, but it hadn't been confirmed until now.

"Anyways. Chichiro remained with Raya for a long while, until she knew I would be able to find you, and then she let her spirit mold with yours completely."

"Then…why is she so evil, if she was waiting for you? I mean, she…" I cut off.

"Hates me," Hiei finished mildly, unaffected. "You can say it." He shrugged. "I suppose the reincarnation didn't work exactly as planned, and when she joined with your spirit, it split and became a yami and hikari."

"What, good and evil? 'Cause seriously, hate to say it, I'm not really all that _good._"

"Light and dark, not good and evil. There's a difference. Light is not always fully good. It just isn't fully bad, either. Same with dark." Hiei's thought train returned back to its original, which my thoughts always refused to do. I always envied how he kept his mind focused even when he had to answer all of my interruptions. "Because your souls fractured when they were fused, whatever consciousness she had left decided it was best to leave it that way and let your mind heal itself. Next year, your yami will cease to exist."

Again, the light-headed feeling returned. "Cease to exist?"

"On your next birthday, when your body becomes fourteen, you'll have to choose between keeping your yami and the hope of someday once again becoming Chichiro, or your other reincarnated spirit, Aletta."

"…Wait. If I chose Chichiro, I wouldn't ever see Aletta again?"

"No. Nor would anyone else. She'd no longer exist."

"And if I chose Aletta?"

"The same."

"But…they're both parts of me! You can't expect me to choose!" Hiei didn't reply, and when I looked at him, his gaze was fixed on the sky, distant. "Are you even listening to me?"

"Ketsue, can you feel it?"

I blinked at him, and probably would have retaliated and snarled about how he _hadn't_ been listening to me if his voice hadn't been so soft and far off.

Come to think of it, though, I did feel _something_. It felt like…I couldn't describe it. It was like…no, I could describe it. It felt like home.

"Yes," I mumbled faintly.

"There's a rift—"

"Not right now there isn't."

"…Ketsue?"

"Don't. Not right now. No more rifts."

I could feel his eyes on me; my own were closed. "We can't just ignore the fact that—"

"Hiei. Just wait."

There was a long pause, as if he was actually considering, and then he seemed to snap of it, and he growled, "We don't have time for your oddities. We have to go close that rift."

The 'home' feeling felt amazing…like I was free. I don't know if it was the scent of the wind or the feel of it, but somehow I was drawn to it. But I knew Hiei was right—I had to comply and abandon my insistence on being able to feel it. "Yes, I know. Gomen."

"Can you sense which w—" Hiei cut off suddenly, then said, "…What did you say?"

"I said sorry."

"No, you said 'gomen'."

"…What the hell is 'gomen'?" Hiei stared at me, then started to chuckle, which escalated to laughing after a moment. I stared back, then said, "What? What's so funny?"

Hiei just shook his head and let his grin fade, and said, "It means 'sorry' in Japanese. But never mind that. Are you ready to go close the rift?"

"Yeah." I smiled lightly, still wondering why he had laughed at me (Though I realize now why he found it so amusing.). I still had trouble believing I had actually spoken Japanese, but ignored it, as I had already spoken demon randomly before as well and could easily blame it on the rift.

Hiei was about to pick me up, but I started to say, "Don't. I want to do this on my own this time so I can get back to normal." However, the sentence stopped at the first 'to', as my legs chose that convenient time to drop from beneath me. I felt Hiei's arm catch me behind my back before I met the ground, but rather than pick me up, he laid me down on the grass. I recovered my consciousness, and then I opened my eyes. "Well. That…didn't quite go as planned," I mumbled.

"Why didn't you tell me your wound was still that severe?" Hiei growled, sounding irritated.

"'Cause I didn't know," I replied in a weak tone. "Now, let's get to closing that rift, shall we?"

The closing was uneventful. It left me fairly drained, but not incredibly so. The trip back hadn't been interesting either, and I fell asleep before we reached home.

* * *

I woke when light snaked across my bed; it was either sunrise or sunset, because of the color of the light, and as I focused on which window it was coming in, I gathered that it was sunrise. I had been out an entire night's sleep time. I sat up, flinching as my chest wound complained, but I dealt with it, ignoring it as best I could, and leaned against the wall, not wanting to get up, but not feeling like lying down any longer. I actually felt better…much more so than the day before, and I realized how weak I really had been. But feeling better only meant one thing to me—go and kill/fight demons and Escque, or spar Hiei. If I didn't do something to that effect, I'd go out of my skull with boredom.

"I suppose I can trust just by your expression that you're ready to spar."

I looked up at Hiei and grinned widely. "Yes." I shoved myself on to my feet and stepped down off my bed (It was only a single mattress, so it was about a foot off the ground) and on to the branch. "I'll walk myself. That okay?"

"Fine. But I doubt it would be a good idea for you to try and make yourself transform." Hiei pressed his index and middle finger to my brow, which he hadn't done in a while, since I was able to make myself transform, and I felt my body shift.

"If I'm transforming either way, why does it matter who makes it happen?"

"You really are simple-minded, aren't you?" he muttered at me with little tone. "You use an incredible amount of spirit energy to transform."

"Then how come I do it when I'm injured, or my body thinks I need to transform? I mean, sure I'm injured, but I obviously my body hasn't translated that to me dying or being close to it, so I won't transform automatically."

"Technically, two days ago you _were_ close to dying," Hiei responded, "but if your body thinks it needs to transform and your spirit energy is too weak to do the job, you can tap into your life energy."

"Life energy? That doesn't sound safe."

"It isn't. And if you try and make yourself transform now, you'll likely do it without knowing. So just deal with the fact that I helped you."

I shut up at the last sentence, simply because I realized I probably sounded like I was indignant about him helping me, which I wasn't, so I shut my mouth obediently. I sprang down after him, my mind-set of my demon self telling me the pain didn't mean any sort of danger to my health then and to ignore it, and I was able to follow him easily. I decided after a short while (Meaning roughly seventy seconds) of earning odd looks from people (I was much faster than any human in my transformed state, though I was still far behind Hiei's abilities) running on the sidewalk to try and travel in the trees like Hiei always did. Crouching and springing upward into the tree, I balanced myself surprisingly fast and leapt to the next tree, finding it to be much simpler than I thought. I knew if I wasn't transformed I would have tripped already and wouldn't have even landed on the branch when I jumped, let alone balance on it.

"I haven't seen you do that in a while."

I looked forward at Hiei, who was waiting for me as he always did when I was injured and he thought he had to, for lack of better wording, 'baby-sit'. "What do you mean?" I leapt to the next and started to find a rhythm, and I caught up with Hiei, who had been about ten feet in front of me, and as I mirrored his leap, if a bit slower, I continued. "I never traveled through trees before, except when you're carrying me."

"Chichiro rarely used the ground for primary travel," Hiei explained, sounding almost bored. I looked over at him, and his expression matched his tone.

"Hey, something wrong?"

He glanced sideways at me without turning his head, then his gaze re-focused in front of him. "No. But we'd be there by now if I were carrying you."

I found it amusing, to a point, that Hiei was acting like he wanted to carry me, despite the fact I knew his reasoning. "Sorry. I just need to stretch my legs."

"Understandable."

I finally began to wonder where we were going this time, and I paid attention to the route. "Hey, where're you taking me?"

"The warehouse we fought the Escque in a couple of months back," he replied. "Despite what you may think, the crates and loft will pose a worthy place to spar without the possibility of interruption."

"What do you mean, without interruption? It's a warehouse. I'm sure there will be humans there."

"No, there won't. Trust me on that."

I blinked, clueless, but decided finally that I probably didn't want to know what he meant and that I should just listen to him.

We arrived at the warehouse within five minutes, and about a mile from it Hiei had disappeared. I had guessed it would be so he could try and surprise-attack me, but I had then considered that he might not with my injury, and figured he was testing my speed or something of the sort, and sped up.

I entered the warehouse a short time afterward, but surprisingly enough to me, Hiei didn't attack me. I looked up to find in on the edge of the loft, in front of the fence on the thin strip of floor before the drop. He wasn't in sight of the doorway, for the section of the loft he was on was on the same wall as the door (Someone in his position would have to hang upside-down to be able to see the doorway), but as I walked into his vision-range, he looked down at me, leaning on to his legs. "Ready?"

"Yeah. I was half-expecting you to randomly attack me." I grinned lightly at him, then summoned an energy ball in my left hand; I still dare not attempt at using my right arm to summon any form of energy which, unfortunately, meant that I didn't have the use of my sword (Unless I tried holding it with my left, which I didn't think would be such a good idea when sparring someone as merciless as Hiei.).

Hiei unsheathed his sword (I was still yet to discover how he reacquired one so often after he had broken one.) and sprang down, not attacking, seeming to give me the first move.

I shot an energy ball at him, but he began to move rapidly in a curve around me, and I shot a chain of energy balls at his flickering form, finally shooting ahead of where he was, and he stopped and pulled back quickly, avoiding it, but he had left himself open for another attack. I shot another ball of energy at him, which caught him beneath his ribs on his abdomen, and he was sent flying backward and into the wall, leaving a nicely-sized dent.

"Shit," I hissed, then said, "Hiei, are you alright?" as I ran toward him. I was cut short as a trail of fire blazed toward me, and I narrowly was able to leap up and elude it, though I could feel the heat beneath me.

"Stop worrying so much," Hiei growled, sounding impatient, though he had not yet stood. He summoned a fireball, this time not a large trail of fire, and shot it toward me, summoning another with his other hand, and fairly soon he was whipping several at a time, which was quite hard to me to avoid.

"Sorry," I muttered with sarcasm thick in my voice, then I shot a red energy ball at him, which I focused on and made into a short, foot-long mini-spear, which was the shape of a thin, long diamond. Grinning at my newly-found weapon (Despite the fact Hiei dodged it with ease), I repeated the move a few times, my energy spears (Which resembled kunais, come to think of it, and thus will be called such) shot through Hiei's fireballs.

The crates around us were pathetically torn up by the time we finally realized that we were both attacking and dodging too fast and at the same rate, mirroring each other, and it would be futile to continue. I decided, after seeing that Hiei had retrieved the blade he'd dropped when I shot him with my energy, to try and use my sword with my left hand despite the fact I had planned on not doing so. I watched the energy lengthen and form into a sword.

"Trying with your left?" Hiei asked, leaping at me. Our swords clashed against each other. "Costly mistake if this were a real fight—there's no way you can win."

"Not like I have any other choice," I spat back, not used to trying to hold out against Hiei's sword with one arm, let alone my left. "I don't see you going easy."

"What do you mean? I've been easing up for you this entire match. You couldn't possibly think you were still that skilled against me injured."

"You had me fooled," I growled back, twitching, but Hiei's sword proved too strong against mine even when he was going easy, and my sword reeled out of my reach as it was knocked away, and I barely sprang back before Hiei's sword cut me in half. "I mean, that whole crater-in-the-wall thing kind of looked authentic to me."

A simple 'hn' was all I received as an answer, and Hiei came at me again, and I leapt back, narrowly dodging. A large energy signal caught me off guard and, naturally easily side-tracked, I turned just as Hiei attacked again. I heard him give a muffled noise of restraint as he hit the hilt of his sword and pulled up, skidding to a stop, but he barely started his sentence (Which no doubt would have been "What were you thinking, you idiot!" but came out as "What w—" before he cut off.) before he switched his gaze sideways at the door as Kurama appeared in it. "You seem to capture her interest easily, Kurama," Hiei growled. "So please, quit doing that when I have her at sword-point. She's too ADD to pay attention to defense when she senses something."

"Hey!" I cried indignantly, but I left it at that single word and a short glare before looking at Kurama again.

"Ketsue," Kurama said with a cheerful grin, "good to see you on your feet."

I smiled back. "Yeah. Thanks to you and Hiei, of course."

An obviously purposefully-emphasized sigh from Hiei snapped me out of smiling at Kurama and made me realize we had just been standing there, exchanging grins, and I clearing my throat and averting my gaze to my Converse All-Stars.

"If you two are done with your touching reunion, perhaps you could get to the point of your interruption, Kurama?"

The spirit fox nodded at Hiei's muttered request, and said, "Yusuke and Kuwabarra are currently fighting Nirvana's rankings in the outskirts of demon world."

"That does not concern us," Hiei growled back immediately. I was surprised at how quickly I had forgotten Hiei's coldness toward others, with how different he acted around me, but it still somehow pleased me to hear him act like that again.

I would have asked what he meant, seeing as how we were allies with Yusuke and Kuwabarra, but Kurama spoke first. "Normally, no. But it seems Yusuke is having difficultly in keeping Nirvana from opening another rift."

"Nirvana is opening the rifts?" I asked, surprised.

"Have you told her nothing, Hiei?" Kurama said accusingly. Their mini-fights never ceased to amuse me.

"Of the origins of the rifts, no," was Hiei's short response. "It was unnecessary information."

"Unnecessary?" Kurama made a 'humph'-like noise I'd never heard him do. "Regardless, because he and Kuwabarra are tied up in the fights against her followers, Yusuke cannot prevent the rifts."

"And? What do you want us to do about it, travel to demon world with Ketsue still injured? Or perhaps you expect her to close the rift while it's being opened and at its strongest, a foolish move that would require her to use her life energy."

Kurama flashed Hiei a cool glare which seemed to say 'Don't make me the bad guy'. "Ketsue seems recovered enough to me. Her energy has improved, and in her demon form she doesn't seem to be responding to the pain of her wound very much. I don't expect her to try and close the rift—I will take that job. But you, at least, must help fight against the demon ranks and free Yusuke to retaliate against Nirvana."

"Why would I free Yusuke?" Hiei growled, revealing a single fang at Kurama as he scowled. "The detective would be useless in that battle. At least _I_ would have a chance."

"True. But you still must do something."

"If anything, I will go and fight Nirvana myself, but leaving Ketsue here alone is not an option. Or have you forgotten the fact they're attempting to kill her as well?"

"I'd be fine alone, Hiei," I offered, but his irritable glare silenced me immediately.

"I don't have time to list off how many times you've disproved that statement. You're coming with me."

I blinked. Not exactly what I had expected, to be blunt. "…Uh, what? You said you didn't want to leave me here alone because they wanted to kill me…so you're taking me to demon world _to_ the demons who want to kill me?"

"Well, what did you think I meant by not leaving you alone?"

"…So…that's a yes?"

"Yes."

Kurama finally intervened. "Good to have that settled, but your earlier point of Ketsue being injured is a worthy subject to be mentioned. Do you think she'd be better suited in the mass battle, or fighting against the higher-level demons that would be with Nirvana? They would be less in number despite their heightened powers."

"I _am_ right next to you, you know," I reminded Kurama, indignant about all the third-person mentions of me.

"Sorry, Ketsue. Alright, what do you think?" His tone was amused, and I realized I wasn't sure of the answer and that was why he had asked Hiei and not me.

Hiei released me from answering and responded himself. "She'd be better off fighting the higher-level demons one-on-one. Her defense has not recovered much, but her attack skills are near normal despite the fact she cannot use her dominant hand." I noticed the fleeting glare Hiei and Kurama exchanged when he mentioned my weakness due to the Black Dragon Wave, and Kurama's accusations within his look, but it was not voiced.

"Very well," Kurama sighed. "Let's get going, then." Kurama turned to me. "Are you alright with going?"

"If Hiei says I should," I replied, realizing just by Kurama's fleeting look of disapproval that I hadn't given him the answer he wanted (Whether it was the actual answer or if it was because I had only said yes because Hiei thought I should was unclear to me.), but the look faded and he just nodded.

"Well, what are we waiting for, then?" Hiei asked, and he flickered from my view. I blinked, wondering why he hadn't tried to carry me like before, but I figured he still assumed I wanted to walk on my own. I didn't mind at all; besides, Kurama was nice enough to actually wait (Again, this was only my assumption, but my guess was that Hiei thought he didn't need to wait since Kurama was staying behind with me.) and I ran alongside him instead.

The real Kurama looked nothing short of stunning. As with Hiei, he was no disappointment to my fondness of his anime character. If the Kurama-obsessed Kaze ever met the real Kurama, I think she'd either be rendered mute and blushing, or pass out (She never was one for outbursts of admitting her fandom, which I would have undoubtedly done to Hiei if I hadn't actually enjoyed our more serious way of speaking to one another. Granted I still had no problem verbally announcing how awesome his anime character was when I watched Yu-Yu-Hakusho, even if Hiei _was_ around (Which, obviously, he often was), but I never really tended to tell him to his face how awesome he was in real life even though he was…Unless I was intoxicated, of course, which I had learned recently.) which I was surprised I hadn't done when I saw Hiei the first time.

…To be honest, I had trouble keeping myself from blushing, even though I did not love Kurama like I did Hiei. I was not as shallow as a human in that I could love someone purely for looks, but I sure as hell could blush just because they were hot.

If Kurama noticed, he didn't mention it, and as we eased into an easy conversation about what Hiei and I had done recently, being that Kurama was unaware of the happenings in Ningenkai lately, I lost whatever discomfort I had toward him because of his looks and made myself comfortable around him quickly. I told him about the training, starting from the beginning, and then moved to the various battles. When I got to my use of the Black Dragon Wave, Kurama's attention seemed more focused. Not to say he hadn't been listening, but people don't generally pay strict attention when listening to casual (This was casual to demons, at least) talk.

"And I listened to him and left, but after killing a few demons I…I _had_ to go back. So I used the Black Dragon Wave and passed out for a day or two afterwards. Hiei gave me some of his energy, and no doubt saved my life (Which he does often, as you can tell)."

"Tell me, Ketsue, did Hiei seem surprised you used the Darkness technique?"

"Uh, yeah, actually. I could read his thoughts for some reason after it happened, and he was actually kind of pissed off."

"Pissed off and worried," Kurama corrected with a gentle smile. I could barely see Hiei far off in front of us, traveling through the trees like we were, but only just. "He tends to come off as more angry than he really is when he is concerned."

"Yeah, I know."

"I suppose you would," Kurama seemed to have just realized. "After all, you probably are the closest person to him right now."

I knew it was the same for me, but I had never really connected that was how it was for Hiei as well. Hey, I always was pretty slow after all. "So, do _you_ know why I randomly acquired the ability to read minds? It was a fleeting power, of course, but I still had it, regardless of how long."

"I assume it was because of the strong increase of demon energy; it leads to different things, depending on whom it involves. Sometimes, transformation, and sometimes, as with your case, new powers."

"So, if I ever used the Darkness technique again—"

"Don't." I looked over at Kurama, my glance enough questioning to prompt further answer. "You shouldn't ever have tried that. Don't attempt it again."

"…Uh…okay?"

Kurama locked eyes with me, and my own seemed unwilling to break gaze with Kurama's emerald orbs. "You do know Hiei was expecting, if not _counting_ on you using the Darkness technique?"

I raised my eyebrows, surprised. "Come again?"

"I'm sure you heard what I said, so I'll just explain: your training was readying you for the use of the technique, which I assume you know, but Hiei decided you were ready and set the circumstances so you would try it."

"…'Set the circumstances'?"

"He told you to go so that you would believe he had lost hope, knowing you would probably try anything drastic to save him."

"So…he used my concern for him, risked his life and mine, just to see if I could use the technique?" Again, I felt the anger I was unaccustomed to growing, and I barely even noticed that my speed was increasing. "You mean I was left drained and in pain just because he wanted to test something out?"

I could see Kurama half-regretted telling me, and he didn't respond.

The rest of the time heading toward the rift was spent in silence. When the rift came into view, and I spotted Hiei standing on a branch nearby a rift-tear, and immediately my anger died down. Not completely, of course, but I think it was impossible for me to stay pissed off with Hiei, no matter what he did. I decided not to mention what Kurama had told me until after we finished the task at hand. After all, this was a life-or-death situation…not that that was anything new to me.

"This is where we separate, then," Kurama commented, nodding once to me and Hiei before he sprang into the air and into a rift tear.

I kept my eyes on the spot he disappeared through for a short while before turning to Hiei. "Where do we go from here?" I asked, struggling to keep my voice level and not shout accusations at Hiei. _Surely he had a better reason for allowing me to use the Black Dragon Wave than just to see if I could use it…_ I twitched. _Or maybe he didn't._

If Hiei noticed my poorly-hid annoyance with him (If he hadn't, I'd be amazed. He seemed to perceive everything.), he didn't mention it, and he indicated a rift tear a few feet off, only about ten feet off the ground, unlike the others I'd seen. "That will take us a few miles outside of where Nirvana is."

I considered it a moment, then said, "Wait…how do you know that? You've been here the entire time, not in demon world. How would you know where she is?"

Hiei sighed, and I know I had asked another question with a blatantly obvious answer that he expected me to know. "Are you still unable to remember that I can sense things?" he muttered at me, then flickered from my view, and I could no longer sense his energy, which I knew meant he had gone through the rift-tear and into Makai.

I sighed as well, though it was a just a feigned one to show my annoyance, and then I leapt up and followed.

The rift tear was roughly forty feet in the air in Makai, and I rolled my eyes as I found myself falling, standing with my arms crossed as if I were standing on the ground, though I brought my knees to my chest before hitting the ground. The sting of my feet lasted only a few seconds, and I stood, looking over at Hiei.

"Which way, Ketsue?" he asked me.

I stared at him. "What are you asking _me_ for?"

"In case you've forgotten, I'm still training you. And if you can't sense this energy, then there's obviously no hope for you."

My stare turned into a cold glare, but I suppressed a growl and nodded my head behind Hiei, off toward beyond him to his left. "There. I can sense a lot of energy back there."

"Hn. Then there may be a point to this training after all." His back was to me before he finished speaking, and I just followed in silence as he picked up speed.

Fortunately for me (Fortunate simply because I was still going through no-fight withdrawal), Nirvana had demon guards. Many of them. Not that they were A-class (And not that I _wanted_ them to be), but they were strong and my need for fighting was satisfied. They were large demons than I was used to, but what they had in brute strength they lacked in intelligence, and I was easily able to cut through them with my energy sword (Held in my left hand, which I didn't worry about only because the demons were so pitiful compared to me even though I was injured and not using my dominant hand).

"I don't know why she even bothers with these imbeciles," Hiei commented as he straightened from an attack, slashing sideways without looking and without changing from his casual standing form and cutting a demon in half as he spoke. "They're pitifully simple to kill. Anyone could infiltrate this place, even the idiot Kuwabarra."

I half expected Hiei to say 'baka', because though I knew little Japanese back then, after reading fan fictions I knew that 'baka' meant…it was the same fan fictions I learned it from that made me expect him to say 'baka' rather than 'idiot'. "Yeah, I know. I was hoping for a challenge." I cut through two demons by spinning my sword horizontally above me and swiping their heads from their shoulders. "After all, like you said, it would probably be fatal to use my left hand to hold my sword in a real fight."

"Hn." Again, my expectation (this time, that Hiei would say that he didn't say that _exactly_, just to correct me on whatever was available to be corrected) of what he'd say was wrong, and he left it at that.

It only took us a few more minutes to kill off all of Nirvana's first lines of defense. As said before, the demons were weak and quick kills (Compared to us, at least. They were stronger than I'm giving them credit for.). After the last demon fell, I followed Hiei to the front door of the…well, I guess 'fortress' is the only word to possibly use. It wasn't a mortal building, and it wasn't a palace or castle by any means. It was brick (At least, some sort of stone that was red-gray and resembled human bricks) with stone columns in front of tall doors which I thought were made of wood before my arm brushed one as I went through the doorway, proving it to be cold and marble-like. The hallway that met us at the entrance had a stone floor, and it was lined with more columns. If it didn't look so magnificent, I would have commented on how cliché it was. "Guess we just go straight," I muttered, and I almost expected a 'Brilliant deduction' or another sarcastic comment from Hiei, but I received none—there were doors behind every column, but the largest were at the end, and I figured those were the best bet.

"I'll have to agree," Hiei replied, but as we continued to walk, his eyes flickered to the other doors on either side of us, "but somehow I doubt it will be that simple."

"Well, _I_ doubt that Nirvana really expected anyone to get past those pathetic guards of hers…It may be as simple as it looks."

"Possibly, but Nirvana's arrogance does not mean she would underestimate us. After all, if you could use the Black Dragon Wave after only a month or so of training, she should be able to realize we are not to be meddled with." I resisted mentioning what Kurama had said when Hiei said 'Black Dragon Wave'. "She will have known by now that Kurama and I are stronger than you—" It seemed odd to me then that the statement Hiei had just said would have offended me a while back. After all, it was true, but my human-like arrogance from last month and before had always not allowed me to admit that. Now the sentence was simple truth, and I was able to accept that. "—and that those guards would not hold us long."

"So, why'd she use them, then?"

"The same reason humans use garden gnomes," Hiei muttered back, his voice lacking the tone to hint at sarcasm even though I knew it had been sarcasm, and I smirked lightly.

"Hey, if those guards didn't really have a point, how many other useless demons do you think she'll waste?"

"Probably quite a few more, knowing her. She likes to draw things out to a vexing length."

After he said 'knowing her,' I became curious. "When did you fight her, anyway? Was it a long time ago?"

"Yes. Before I knew Chichiro, in fact, but that is unimportant at the moment."

I snickered. "You're making it sound like she's your ex."

"Hn. Don't insult me," was Hiei's reply, and I grinned again.

"Hey, guys," came a new, but familiar, voice. "Nice to see you made it this far."

Hiei and I turned to the left and stopped before the doorway, and Hiei spoke first as a familiar, black-haired delinquent stepped out from behind the columns, rubbing the back of his head. "Yusuke, what are you doing here? I thought you were fighting the demons back at the rift."

"Yeah, funny thing about that. Y'see, some random ram demon decided to transport me here, and I just landed (on my head) not two seconds before you guys showed up."

"Ram demon?" I asked, thinking of Nirvana.

"It wasn't her," Hiei corrected, automatically knowing what I was thinking even without using his jagan. "She wouldn't have wasted her time transporting Yusuke if she knew we were coming. It must have been her mate."

"You mean the male ram demon she was with back in the city?" I asked. Yusuke had walked over and joined us by that point.

"Yes. I can't say I know his name, though."

"Then how can you be sure it was him?" Hiei glared over at me silently, and then I muttered, "Okay, I know. You don't need to know someone's name to know about them." I said it in a way that made it seem like I was reciting something I had been taught, but I only knew that Hiei would have said something similar and said it for him. "But, still, how can you be sure it was him?"

Hiei gave a low growl directed at me, then turned to Yusuke. "It _was_ a male ram demon, wasn't it?" Yusuke nodded. "About nine feet tall, less human-looking than most ram demons?" Another nod. "A small scar across the left side of his brow, directly below one of his horns?" A third and final nod. Hiei turned and just gave a me a fleeting glance and said, "Satisfied?" before his gaze returned to the door at the end of the hallway and he began walking again.

My eye twitched lightly, but I admitted my defeat and followed him, stuffing my hands in my pockets. Yusuke walked next to me, and every once and a while I felt his eyes on me. I could never tell whether it was curiosity or wariness that made him monitor me so closely—I had this strange feeling that Yusuke didn't trust me, which seemed odd. I would have thought Hiei would be the one not to trust easily, not Yusuke. But, then again, Hiei _could_ read minds…and Yusuke obviously couldn't.

As soon as Hiei stepped through the doors, he stopped, and I was about to ask why when a demon flung itself at him, and he caught its out-stretched arms and whipped it sideways and into the wall, unsheathing his sword and slashing through the next that came at him. I immediately ran into the room as well, summoning an energy sword with my left hand and cutting a demon in half, and Yusuke followed as well and I watched as little blue energy balls shot at the demons like bullets, which I guessed was his shotgun technique, but he didn't announce his attack.

I found these demons to be no stronger than those outside, and the fight was boring. That is, until the next set of doors at the end of this room (Which was identical to the last) opened and revealed Nirvana. Yusuke punched through the last demon guard and straightened like me and Hiei to face the ram demoness, though none of us attacked. I noticed something flicker in Nirvana's eyes after she scanned all three of us, and suddenly her gaze snapped over to Hiei, and I glanced sideways at him. The look on his face told me that they were speaking through telepathy, and I restrained a growl of annoyance that he was withholding the conversation from me. "Ketsue, I'm afraid you're going to have to stay here," Hiei said after a moment.

My eyes widened lightly. "What do you mean?" I cried indignantly. "Don't expect me to just wait here for you to—"

"Don't," was all Hiei said, and his glare sideways was enough to stop me. He hadn't looked that seriously pissed off in a long time, and for once it wasn't really annoyance directed at me. I could only guess what Nirvana had said to him to make him angry, but I still didn't want to let Hiei go on alone.

"But why do I have to stay here? And what do you want me to do, sit around and wait?"

"Exactly," was Hiei's flat reply, and as Nirvana began to walk back into the room she had just came from, Hiei went after her with his hands in his pockets.

I blinked, confused, then looked over at Yusuke, who I was surprised to find seemed perfectly fine with being left behind. Well, surprised until I looked at what Yusuke's eyes were focused on—the doors on either side of us were opening, and more demons were coming forth. However, my demon senses told me these were not as weak as the others…they were A-class demons. I threw a single glance at Hiei as the doors closed behind him and Nirvana, and my eyes met his cool crimson, and for some reason I thought I saw dread (The slightest bit, of course, being that I could rarely see any sort of emotion in Hiei's eyes) in them, but then the door closed completely, and I was left back-to-back with Yusuke, facing the demons.

"You ever fought A-class before?" I heard Yusuke ask behind me.

"Once," I responded, my eyes flicking to the demons in front of me.

"And how did you do?" Yusuke's voice came again after only a few seconds of silence. The demons before us didn't move, and strangely seemed to respect our conversation enough to wait 'til we were done.

"I ended up fainting at the end, with a crippled arm that still isn't better, and I probably would have died if Hiei hadn't been there," I muttered.

I sensed Yusuke grin. "Great…then we have nothing to worry about, do we?"

Then the demons lunged.

I didn't summoned my sword, figuring that this was one of the instances Hiei had meant would be fatal beforehand to train myself in, and I just summoned energy balls and shot them at the demons. Yusuke's back no longer touched mine, and I heard him giving attack shouts behind me.

Despite the fact I was in considerable danger, being that I was fighting the most powerful demons I had ever fought, I found myself completely preoccupied and barely paying attention to the battle. Instead, my mind was on Hiei and Nirvana. What could they possibly be doing? Fighting? Talking? I considered completely unrealistic alternatives, but my demon mind outweighed my human now and shoved the thoughts out after only a few moments.

I was of course slammed back to reality relatively fast. The A-class demons that were trying to kill me _were_ a bit distracting. At the moment, these demons didn't seem to want to fight me all at once, though, and I was fighting a large blue demon with a human-like face but only a single eye (And the blue skin kind of threw off the humanness as well). He was only using his claws, which he seemed to be able to retract, like me in my demon form; they were about a foot long each. I blocked his slashes with my own arm, ignoring the little cuts I was afforded. He didn't seem to actually be trying, because I thought that if he did, he probably wouldn't make small cuts. More likely, he'd probably cut off my arm.

As I shot out an energy trail from my arm, not surprised that the demon dodged, Yusuke spoke to me again between killing demons. "So, what's between you and Hiei?"

I figured I knew what he meant, but I played dumb in case I was assuming wrong. "What's that supposed to mean?" I shot another energy ball at the blue demon, but he continued to dodge, making no further attacks of his own.

"You know what I mean." There was an annoying, clever tone to Yusuke's voice that somehow pissed me off. "Do you guys have a thing for each other, or what?"

I growled, finding my anger toward Yusuke's ignorance an asset as my energy became stronger and killed the blue demon within seconds of the spirit detective speaking. "Nothing's between us," I growled in a thick, 'back off' tone.

"Don't get so defensive," Yusuke replied with a chuckle, "or I'll disagree."

"Don't tell me what to do," I responded in the same way Yusuke had began his sentence, "or you'll piss me off. And trust me…you don't want to do that."

Again, Yusuke snickered behind me, and I kept myself from attacking him (Not very easily, mind. I wasn't used to not being able to kill the things that annoyed me, excluding Hiei.), my mind refocusing on the demons. Now there were two demons attacking me—a canine-demon with a long muzzle and a furry, human-like body, and one that looked mostly human besides its cat-slit eyes. The energy trails wouldn't work for close-range, which is what they were getting at, and I doubted energy balls would suffice, either, so I turned to my sword. The two demons before me both used blade weapons as well. The canine used a chain and sickle, and the other used an axe.

The canine demon swung its blade at me, the scythe-like blade swinging around my head in an arch. As I ducked, I realized the demons behind the two I was fighting now were casting glances at the doors Hiei and Nirvana had left through, and after I dodged a second attack by the chain and sickle, the rest retreated back through the doors. As I bent backward to evade an attack, I saw Yusuke battling four demons, but the rest on his side were gone; though he was a good fighter, I doubted he had destroyed them all. "Yusuke, what's going on?"

"Something the demons don't like," was all he said, but he said it in such a dark manner that I didn't really notice how obvious that had been.

The demon with the cat-slit eyes finally leapt at me, raising his sword, which clashed against mine. I realized Hiei really _had_ been going easy on me, and quite a bit at that. The demon easily shoved my arm down, and the canine demon lashed out with his sickle and I had to release my sword or my hand would have been swiftly removed from my wrist. I winced lightly; I had had to catch the demon's sword with my hand to block myself, and I wasn't skilled enough to keep my hand from being cut into.

As short as the fight had been, after the demon caught my hand with his sword, I was able to summon another one of mine, cutting through his own and stabbing into his torso. I then slashed sideways and killed the canine demon as well.

Just then, a large explosion came from within the room Hiei and Nirvana were in, and the entire wall on that side of the room was ripped off, and I recognized the shriek of the Black Dragon Wave. I averted my gaze to watch the dragon tear through the building we were in, but it didn't advance on me or Yusuke, and retreated back into the room it had come from, still seeming to chase something, but I couldn't see very far past its large, black, red and blue body. In my distraction, I did not see the canine demon at my feet move, nor did I realize I hadn't killed it. Unfortunately for me, it had just enough strength to raise its sickle a single last time and slam it through the bottom half of my leg and splinter the bone within.

I cried out, hissing to keep myself from repeating the verbal outburst, and I shot the canine demon's head with a single energy ball, killing it instantly, then I found the ground rushing up to meet me as my shattered leg bone refused to allow my leg to support me any longer. Yusuke jogged over, asking the usual, pointless, "Are you okay?" I ignored the question for a moment, glaring down at the scythe-like weapon still imbedded in my limb, then grabbed hold of the handle and closed my eyes, biting my lip, and wrenched it free with another small outcry. I threw the weapon at the wall, and in my pain I threw it a bit harder than intended, creating a small crater in it just to the side of the door.

"Is…that a yes?" Yusuke asked after a moment, without a clue as usual.

I gritted my teeth and opened my eyes, glaring over at him. "Oh, yes, I'm just peachy. Just a shattered leg that I'll probably never walk on again, that's all."

"Good," Yusuke responded with equal sarcasm. "And there you had me worried." I deepened my glare into a more threatening, serious one, and Yusuke sighed. "What do you want me to do? Go investigate that explosion or help you out of this place?"

"The explosion was obviously Hiei," I growled back, "and I can't sense Nirvana anymore. It feels like Hiei went back to where Kurama is."

"Why would he leave?" Yusuke mumbled, more to himself than anyone.

"I'm guessing he's trying to find Nirvana," I replied, then realized that there was what looked like a barrier around the room we were in. "Or…maybe this force field made it so he couldn't sense that we were still here."

"Force fi...? …Oh. Great." Yusuke had just noticed that I was right about there being a barrier, and he stood, walking over to it and poking it lightly with one finger. He wasn't thrown backward or attacked by any sort of repelling force, but it seemed that it was solid.

"No luck?" I called over, attempting to ignore my pain. The only reason I was succeeding so well was because I was transformed and my demon senses were telling me I wasn't injured in a life-threatening way. It seemed that life-threatening wounds were the only injuries I was allowed to care about when I was transformed.

"None," Yusuke confirmed, knocking on the circular force field, and receiving a 'clink clink' sound when his knuckled hit it.

"How wonderful," I mumbled, then tried to contact Hiei telepathically, only to receive a large, stinging attack to my mind that left me dazed for a moment. "No telepathy, either," I told Yusuke after I had recovered from the momentary shock. The pain of blocked telepathy fades incredibly fast.

"Great." I realized at that that Yusuke used the word 'great' a lot for sarcasm.

I just gave a muffled 'hn'-like noise in response. "You think you can help me up now, like you asked about before?"

Yusuke nodded and walked over to me, crouching and pulling my arm over his shoulders, beginning to stand. I flinched, but didn't try and support myself on my injured leg, only on my healthy limb. "Now what?"

"We wait?" Yusuke offered.

My steely glare should have gotten my point across, but because Yusuke seemed slow to me, I elaborated through speech anyway. "No. I hate waiting, and waiting will do nothing in this situation. Do you even know who made this force field?"

"That would be me," purred a deep, feminine voice, which I recognized to be Nirvana. I diverted my glare to her.

"Why did you trap us in here?" I knew it seemed like a stupid question, being that we were enemies, but I would have assumed she would also trap Hiei if she was going to try such a thing.

"When groups are separated, they weaken," she replied coolly, "and you are no exception. However, I have no interest in killing you now."

"Then, again, why did you trap us here? If you don't aim to kill us, what do you want?"

"To talk," she said in as innocent a voice as she could manage. "Aren't I allowed that luxury? Or is that only reserved for your demon?"

I growled. "'My demon'?" I quoted. "Why does _everybody_ assume that me and Hiei are together?"

"You're not?" She feigned surprise. "That's not how he made it seem."

I knew Hiei far too well to believe that. "Give me a break. Hiei would never say that we were together to anyone, let alone _you_."

"I can understand the first half of that—" This time she feigned offense. "—but why do you think I'm such a tabooed person to tell?"

"Maybe 'cause you're the bad guy?" I wondered where Yusuke was through this conversation, but when I turned to look at him, he was missing from his spot. "Where's Yusuke?" I demanded, turning back to Nirvana.

"Don't worry about him. He's here, but you aren't aware of him. It's the same for him—he can't see you, but in his case, my mate is handling him."

I suddenly realized I was standing on my own, since Yusuke had just vanished from his place supporting me. My leg appeared to be healed. "What's going on?"

"What you see is nothing more than a trick of your mind. You're still wounded, you're still leaning on Yusuke, and there isn't any force field."

I stared at her incredulously. "And am I supposed to believe that you created this elaborate mind trick?"

"And who else would?" was the response I received.

Growing tired of this, I finally asked, in an exasperated tone, "What do you want, Nirvana? If you aren't going to kill me, what _do_ you want me for?"

"Do you trust Hiei?"

The question caught me off guard, but I didn't have to think about my answer. "Of course I do."

"How much?"

"With my life." I narrowed my eyes in suspicion. "Why?"

"Because I want to shake you free of that trust." A fanged grin spread across Nirvana's lips. "And I will, in due time."

"You're _wasting_ you're time," I responded in a correcting tone, "if you think you can make me stop trusting Hiei."

Nirvana gave a short laugh, then advanced toward me. I found myself unable to move. "We'll see about that." She was standing directly in front of me now.

Somewhere to my right, I heard Hiei say "Ketsue" in a quiet, far-off tone, and I turned, but saw nothing. When my eyes retuned to Nirvana, it was no longer Nirvana before me, but Hiei. I locked eyes with him, wondering if this was really Hiei, or another fabrication of Nirvana's mind trap, and I guessed the latter as a sadistic smirk slid across Hiei's lips. I have to admit, however, it was convincing when he said, inferring an event Nirvana couldn't have known about, "I told you before you have no reason to trust me. And I'll prove it." However convincing, my concentration on whether or not it was real was broken when Hiei raised his hand and, with it glowing red with his demon energy, shoved it into my chest.

I jolted awake, finding myself to be uninjured further, in the same position as before, with Yusuke supporting me, but my legs gave in my surprise and mild fear. Yusuke seemed to've just woken from his own mind trick, and he was unprepared to steady my fall and 'Whoa!'ed as I fell. I gritted my teeth against an outcry as my shattered leg fell into a painful position. Once on the ground, though, I looked down and checked myself, satisfied to find no chest wound besides the one I had received from the S-class demon beforehand.

"Did Nirvana do that weird mind thing with you, too?" Yusuke asked, attempting to help me stand, but for some reason I had no strength left.

"Yeah, she did. But, uh, Yusuke? I don't think standing is going to work."

He proceeded to rub his neck absent-mindedly, then said, "So, er, should I carry you or something?"

I felt uncomfortable at the idea, being that I was only used to Hiei carrying me, but I saw no other way out of it. "Well…see if you can contact Hiei through telepathy, first."

"Already tried. Nirvana might've said that this was just a force field in our mind, but there is a telepathy block despite what she said."

"Probably so that Hiei wouldn't know what she was doing," I responded. "Why couldn't he see us, though?"

"She must've actually had the force field at first, but then let it fade after we both went unconscious and she started her little mind game."

I was surprised to hear Yusuke figuring things out for himself. He was much more of an idiot in the anime.

"But anyway," Yusuke continued, "I don't know about you, but I'd rather leave if Nirvana isn't here and get back to Kurama and Hiei to find out what the hell happened between her and Hiei."

"Sounds good to me." I avoided Yusuke's look and didn't mention how we would get there.

"I guess you'll let me carry you, then?"

I bit at my lip in a rare nervous habit, then shrugged. "If you don't mind. I guess it would probably be the fastest way."

"I don't mind," Yusuke confirmed, then picked me up carefully, as not to hurt my leg. "Have you been injured this bad before?" he asked as he started walking around the crumbled rubble of the wall from the other room to leave.

"Yeah, just not on my leg. I've had worse." I couldn't stop myself from thinking yet again how much of a wuss I would have been about this wound before my training with Hiei. I probably would have been in tears long before now if I wasn't so tolerant of pain, now.

"Does Hiei drag you into a lot of battles, then?"

Yusuke could walk fairly fast, but it was nothing compared to Hiei running at his full speed. "'Course. But I don't mind—I like fighting." I realized Yusuke was more clueless than Kurama about what Hiei and I did, so I answered various questions about the battles I had been in while Yusuke carried me back.

Soon, Hiei and Kurama came into view, their backs to us. They were pretty deep in what looked like a serious conversation, and surprisingly enough, they didn't seem to notice us. When we were maybe fifteen or twenty feet off, Yusuke spoke, directed at the short Jaganshi in front of us. "Is this yours?"

As soon as Hiei looked up and said my name in a relieved-sounding tone and I locked eyes with him, I struggled from Yusuke's arms and, ignoring my leg and the fact I was limping, I ran to him and sprang onto him, wrapping me arms around his neck, mirroring his act of just saying my name (Of course saying his and not mine). Yusuke and Kurama exchanged fleeting glances with an unreadable expression, but I didn't pay any mind to the fact and Hiei didn't either, returning my embrace, if a bit less fiercely. I then recalled my leg after my relief calmed me down, and I hobbled for a moment before stumbling over, Hiei catching me to keep me from falling. I grinned at him sheepishly, and he smiled back lightly. (Behind us, I heard Yusuke whisper to Kurama, "Am I imagining things, or did Hiei just…smile? _At_ someone…without smirking?" but he received no response from the fox.)

"What happened?" Hiei asked, supporting me so I didn't fall over thanks to my injury. It seemed that my strength had returned. "You two were gone after I used the Black Dragon Wave on Nirvana."

"She, uh, decided to screw with our minds a bit," I replied. I was relieved to see Hiei, but it felt like I was more relieved than I should have been. "Force fields, messing with trust...that sort of thing."

"Mind games," Hiei growled disdainfully. His crimson eyes had not left mine. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm okay. Well, except for my leg, of course, but that'll heal…I hope."

"Don't worry about that," spoke up Kurama. "I can heal broken bones quickly."

I smiled at him. "Thanks, Kurama." I looked over at Yusuke, who had been standing next to Kurama and zoning off. "And thanks, Yusuke, for carrying me back."

"Don't worry about it," he replied with a grin, and he and Kurama began walking back toward the rift without further word. I guessed that Kurama had meant that he would heal me after we returned to the human world.

I felt Hiei's arm beneath my knees (His other had already been behind my shoulders), and as he set off at a run that made me realize again how slow Yusuke was compared to him, he said, "What did she do to you, Ketsue?"

I looked up at him. "What?"

"Nirvana," he replied, sounding more patient than usual. I guess he knew that my mind was slower because I had just woken from a mind trick. "What did she do in her mind trap?"

"She talked about me trusting you, and how she was going to make me stop trusting you. And then she…I think she morphed into you, and attacked me, but then I woke up."

"You _think_?"

"I mean, I think it was her who morphed. It might have been a different shape-shifter, like one of those Manawyn-things."

"Hn."

I was again relieved at being with Hiei, and just as with last time, I wasn't sure why, but I rested my head against him and closed my eyes, sighing a single time. "Can we finish talking when we get back?" I asked, finding that my strength was failing again.

Hiei gave a simple, "Sure," and then I slid into sleep.


	20. Shadowcats and Invitation

**Disclaimer:** Neither Hiei, nor Yu-Yu-Hakusho is mine.

**Claimer:** Chichiro and Ketsue are mine, Kaze is BritKit, Aria is FoxWitch. While not all the characters are mine, all writing, storylines and concepts in this fanfiction (Save any YYH references) are, including Spike, Zerathus, and any other shadowcats mentioned, as well as the shadowcat species.

* * *

My slumber didn't last long. As soon as we passed through the rift into Ningenkai, I woke. I wasn't sure if it was from the thick human air, the drastic drop in demon energy, my leg pain, or the fact that we were falling from the sky at an incredibly fast rate, but whatever the cause of my waking, I was a bit alarmed at the previously mentioned 'falling'. Because I was groggy and I decided I'd rather not look at how high we were falling from, I just said, "Uh, Hiei? What's going on?"

"We're falling, why do you ask?"

I sighed at his casual tone. "So I gathered. But, uhm, _why_ are we falling, exactly?"

"You sound calmer than usual when heights are mentioned," Hiei commented idly, still as calm as ever. "I'm not familiar with this happening, but apparently the rift tear moved in its link to the human world, so we're now roughly a mile off shore of some ocean or another."

"…Ocean? Off shore?" Unlike the demon world, the human world's laws still had its effect on me, and I was a bit light-headed from the lesser amounts of oxygen. "We're above an ocean?"

"That's how it looks. I can't think of any lakes this large that would sport land like what I can see in front of us a ways."

"So…how high are we?"

"Too high for me to be able to tell you without you scaring yourself back into unconsciousness," he replied with a bored sigh. "Luckily, we're falling pretty fast and we'll get to the water soon, though I do dread the impact a bit."

'_Luckily'?_ I thought. _Did he actually just say _luckily _for _that _context?_ "…Oh. Wouldn't that kill us?"

"Probably." I realized his hold on me was loose, and that I was actually almost floating above his arms, which were lightly touching my back. Since we were falling, I realized it was unnecessary for him to actually hold on to me. "I'm working on that."

I looked up at him, and his countenance was no less calm than his voice, and he almost looked bored. "…Right." The fact that he was so casual about the whole thing was surprising enough to keep me distracted from our probable doom, but I doubted that he was being so calm to accomplish that. Knowing Hiei, he probably _was_ as calm as he seemed about us falling most likely thousands of feet in the air above an ocean. "Well, if you do think of a way of keeping us from dying, do tell me, but if we somehow don't get killed, are we going to swim back? I don't think I can very easily, with my leg injured."

"We'll worry about that if and when we get there," was his response, then he thought aloud, "I wonder how deep this water is?"

"Where are Kurama and Yusuke through all of this?" I asked as I thought of them. I didn't mention Kuwabara, since I didn't know if he had been there or not. I hadn't seen him, after all.

"They went through a rift-tear near us, and I assume they're either farther off on the land or water, or perhaps their rift-tear didn't change and they're back in your home town like they're supposed to be."

The words 'home town' stung me the slightest bit, but I ignored it and finally leaned over Hiei's arms to look down. If I had been in human form, I have no doubt I would have passed out like Hiei suggested before. Even in my generally fear-deficient demon form, my stomach still twisted, and I recoiled stiffly against Hiei again.

"I told you that you shouldn't look," Hiei growled at me, but he didn't use much emotion in the statement.

"Yeah, and I should have listened to you. But…now that I have looked, how are you doing with that preventing-death thing? I think we're not too far off from hitting the water." The truth behind the last sentence made me glad I had waited so long to look down.

"Do you think you could summon a sword and lengthen it?"

"A…sword? Uh, yeah, I guess. But, why?"

"How long can you make it?"

"Are you planning on having me use it as a pole-vault, or something?"

"Something like that. I'm not sure if it would be a good idea to use my energy sword, since mine is actual energy and it would be like a flashing radar signal to Escque to swamp us as soon as we hit the water. You do remember what I've said before about Escque and water?"

"Of course," I sighed, then reached my left arm over Hiei's arms and summoned a normal-length sword, the blade facing down, and then began to extend it as quickly as I could. I heard it hit the water only a few seconds after, but the water was obviously very deep (A fact that made me feel sick, because I also still had a deep-water phobia back then), as the sword didn't hit the sea floor for a short while. When it did, I wasn't expecting it, and I was still extending the sword, and it thrust me and Hiei back upward a bit before I released the sword from surprise and found myself falling again. Hiei reached out and snagged the blade, sliding down it and slowing us until we were about ten feet from the water before letting go of the sword, which proceeded to fade back into energy and return to my body. I then noticed blood in the sky above us (You have to remember, when falling, liquids look like they're going upwards even though they aren't), and realized that the blade Hiei had grabbed on to had been sharp. "Are you okay?" I asked, snatching his hand into mine to look at without really noticing. The cut on his palm was deep and bleeding freely, but it wasn't anything serious (Not that hand wounds were generally serious anyway, but I tended to think of any injury of Hiei's as serious).

"I'm fine," Hiei replied, raising an eyebrow at me but not commenting on my hand-snatching.

We hit the water as soon as he finished speaking, and I was a bit surprised it had taken that long for us to fall. I still had hold on his hand when we made impact, but I quickly released it for simple fear that I would tighten my grip and hurt him. I opened my eyes underwater, as I always did when I swam, but I had obviously forgotten we were in an ocean rather than a pool, and the salt stung my eyes. I kicked to the surface with my good leg and gasped for air (With my injured leg, the short swim had taken longer than usual and I was out of breath quickly.), rubbing at my eyes to no avail, since my entire body was wet and I had nothing to dry my eyes with, and looked for Hiei. The fire demon surfaced seconds afterward, his hair not as gravity-defying as usual and plastered to his head. I restrained a giggle; I hadn't really thought about it, since his hair was always shooting straight up, but it was actually quite long. "Well," I started, a small smirk twitching at my lips when I realized I sounded as amused as I was, "now that we've failed to be killed by falling, I'll ask again: are we just going to swim back?"

"What else would we do?" Hiei responded, mirroring my earlier act and wiping at his eyes with a single hand.

"I can't really do much in the way of swimming," I reminded him, figuring it had slipped his mind. "My leg's all banged up, remember?" As if just being reminded, my leg started to sting horribly. I had obviously forgotten the high salt content again, and the fact that salt made wounds sting.

"Hn. We can't just sit around in the ocean, if that's what you're planning otherwise," he growled at me, and I silently agreed as I realized he was right—I would have to try and swim despite my leg; we couldn't wait for it to heal so we could swim back.

I looked around us, wondering which way to go, but Hiei said, almost automatically, and "Your left."

I looked left, but I saw no relieving strip of land of any sort, and I said, "Are you sure? I mean, you could have switched the way you were facing and…"

I trailed off at his 'I will kill you if you continue' look, and he said, "Yes, I'm sure. Even if I wasn't, what else would you do? Suggest the first random direction you can come up with?"

I bit my lip to keep from retaliating and making myself sound more foolish, but glared at him anyway and started swimming, at what I assume was a slow rate, but I couldn't tell, being that I had no reference point to look at. My leg was hurting an increasing amount as my body automatically tried to use it to assist my good leg in swimming.

Hiei was swimming behind me, but I knew he could swim faster and was only staying because, as usual, I was injured. A thought suddenly struck my mind. "Hey, Hiei?"

"Hn?"

"Can you walk on water? Er…_run_ on water? I mean, you're fast enough. You should be able to."

"Of course I can. But if you're inferring that I should try now, don't. I can't leave you here alone with the knowledge that we're both already sitting ducks for the Escque; especially you, being that you're one of their main targets. And I can't carry you, either, if that's what you were thinking, because in order to run on water, I'd have to be on top of it in the first place. I'm no dolphin, so unless you can think of a brilliant plan of getting me on top of the water and somehow being able to suspend myself in mid-air long enough to get you from the water, I'd say we're swimming back."

I gave a long, drawn out sigh. I definitely was loosing all of these conversations, even though I never set out to win them in the first place.

The swim back took a long time. A _very_ long time. Such a long time, in fact, I refuse to narrate it because of how many ideas I went through that were immediately shot down by Hiei in during the trip.

When my foot finally hit land (I had been able to see land about halfway from where we started to here, but I wasn't sure how close we were because of the swell of the ocean and the fact that I stopped feeling sick if I looked down rather than out; really, though, that shouldn't make sense, because often sea-sick people are told to look out at the horizon rather than down, but I guess it was because I was in the water rather than on a boat. Not to say I wouldn't have preferred, for once, being on a boat.), I was near-positive it was some sort of sea creature I did not want to meet, and I gave a small shriek. (Recall I was still a bit out of it at this point. Grogginess does strange things to me.) Hiei, however, gave a low sigh and grabbed the back of my hoodie and pulled me to my feet, as he was already standing in water that came to about his shoulders. The water was about to my neck with my feet flat on the sea floor, and I had to wonder why I had not noticed how shallow the water was before.

Glad for the weightlessness of the water and the fact I could sink down to float without needing to support my injured leg, I watched Hiei as he walked onto the beach ahead of us, which was clear of any life form, and made a bet with myself on how long it would take him to shout at me to follow him. He seemed to be working out where we were and if there were any threats, because it took him longer than I estimated to do so. …Well, actually, he didn't shout at me so much as he gave me his evil-glare that I was able to see even though we were relatively far apart, and I stood back up from my float and walked as best I could to the shallower water, limping onto the shore (The previously mentioned limp was actually quite horrid. I doubt walking was what I was actually doing—probably something close to hobbling.).

"Hiei?" I said after I was on the beach, sitting down and trying to make it so the sand didn't stick to my clothing too much.

"What?" His voice was clearly distracted, and when I looked over at him his eyes were scanning the trees in front of us. We had landed somewhere with only a short, maybe 20 feet, beach and then a long line of trees after it. The trees didn't look like anywhere I had been before, save maybe Makai, but I knew we weren't in Makai because of how heavy and different the air felt. They were twisted and had darker trunks than the trees I usually saw, but strung among them were a few palm trees. _That's weird_, I thought.

"I officially never want to do that again."

"How nice," Hiei growled back, sarcasm thick in his voice, then turned his body to me, crouching, though his eyes and face were still turned toward the woods. As he opened his mouth to speak, he finally turned to face me. "How is your leg?"

"Kinda hurts, but I'll manage," I replied. "I can walk better than before, even though it hurts more and I'm not quite sure how that works, but I still can't run any marathons."

"Hn. I doubt you could even if you weren't injured," he replied, his gaze riveted on the trees again. He was really starting to creep me out, but I decided not to mention it.

"So, any ideas where we are?"

"None at the moment," was his response. He ran a hand through his hair, which was almost as gravity-defying as usual already, and stood again. "I figure if we can find another rift-tear in the area, or a rift, we can either get back to Makai and try again, or we can start world-hopping until we find out way back."

For some reason, 'world-hopping', just the name, sounded incredibly fun to me. "Uh…world-hopping?"

"Yes." He shifted his blood-red gaze to me. "It isn't that hard to gather what it is from the name."

"Well, yeah, but how many worlds are there?"

"More than you seem to think," he replied. "In your mind you only think of three, am I correct? Makai, Ningenkai and Reikai?"

"Er…R—"

"Spirit world." His explanations were becoming automatic to him, I could tell. "There are many sub-levels of Makai that you aren't aware of, which could be seen as different worlds but are best kept to one label. And there are thousands of others like your world that don't really have a specific category."

"So…they're other human worlds?"

"Not quite. Your world isn't entirely a human world anymore, if you haven't noticed. There are different kinds of non-humans littered through the world as well. It is the same for the others. Some are demon-superior, others human-superior, and others are reigned over by different kinds of creatures or non-humans."

"Are we in my world, then?"

"I don't think so."

Somehow, the way he said 'I don't think so' made me badly want to leave this world. "Okay, do you know where we are?"

"You already asked me that."

My eye twitched. "Yes, I know, but you don't look like you don't know where we are. You look like you've been here before."

"Ketsue," he sighed, and I could hear exasperation plain in his voice, "be quiet." The simplicity of the statement, and the surprise that he said 'be quiet' rather than 'shut up' made me almost snicker. "I have a hunch on the world we're in, but that's better left unknown by you."

"…M'kay. I'm guessing that means that you think we should leave?"

"As soon as possible," he confirmed, then he extended a hand to me. "Since Kurama isn't here to heal you, you'll have to try and walk on that leg."

I gave a feigned whimper of opposition. "But I don't want to," I mumbled at him in a whiny voice, just to piss him off. I honestly couldn't care less, but pissing Hiei off always made me stop noticing my injuries out of simple amusement.

As I took his hand, he glared at me. "And I could care. Don't try that again, or you'll be back on the ground faster than you'll intend."

I blinked at him, deciding, as with many other occasions, that I best not wonder what he meant by that. "Riiight." I pulled myself up using his arm and his help, and supported myself on my good leg, putting the slightest amount of weight on my other. "Which way?"

Hiei motioned above the trees, and when I looked up in the direction he was pointing to, I could faintly see a rift-tear, which looked much like a door, hovering above the forest. Of course, I use "hover" loosely, as it wasn't moving and it was kind of just…there.

"But that's so far off." I looked over at Hiei as I spoke, and I realized by the look on his face that he was a bit worried about that fact.

"I know, but we'd be worse off waiting." Judging again by his expression, I don't think he believed that. Going into the forest was the exact opposite of what he wanted to do. "Come on. Stay behind me, stay alert."

I followed him as quietly as possible, which was a bit hard with my limp, and resisted the urge to grab his hand. I wasn't used to being scared when I was in my demon form, or even creeped out, but this place had me on-edge. I don't even think it was the way Hiei was acting toward it, either—the entire woods had me scared, and I wished Hiei had decided to go behind me. I wasn't sure why he told me to stay behind him, being that I could probably get picked off by something without him noticing, but then again, he wasn't exactly the unobservant type.

We walked (Or in my case limped) for only about ten minutes before Hiei stopped me. His backward glance told me not to make any noise, and I stifled the sound of my breathing as much as I could and listened. All I heard was silence. Maybe that was the problem.

I wasn't sure how long we had been there, but Hiei wasn't relaxing at all, and he wasn't continuing, either. I didn't know how much longer I'd last standing still. Fighting the urge to fidget, or at least sit down and stop having to support my bad leg, was hard enough. The length I had to do it was making it worse.

Out of no where, a white, cougar-like big cat walked out from behind the trees, silent, as if it were materializing from nothing. It had black-tipped ears and a black-tipped tail, though the rest of it was white, save a single blue-tinted black symbol on its brow, which looked to me like the symbol for anarchy. I reached out to poke Hiei and alert him to it, but when my eyes turned to him, his own were already fixated on the cat. He reached out his right arm and nudged me a bit with his hand, and I translated the gesture as 'get behind me' and did so. Unfortunately, it seemed the cat Hiei was facing was not the only one, and four others emerged in a large, half-circle around me. I glanced behind myself and saw that three more accompanied the cat in front of Hiei, and I pressed my back against Hiei's, not noticing the action, but it told him we were surrounded nonetheless.

I nearly jumped when a voice behind me spoke that definitely wasn't Hiei's, but what shocked me more than the initial sound was that when I turned, it was the cougar-like cat that was doing the talking. "Hiei. Long time no see, eh?" The cat had a deep, masculine voice that was laced with playfulness, but a certain danger that didn't make me want to get any closer to him any time soon.

"Uh…Hiei?" I hissed to the fire demon behind me. "The cat just talked."

"Thanks, Ketsue, I didn't notice," was the sarcastic response I received, but I was able to ignore my annoyance out of surprise as the cat morphed and walked toward Hiei as a man.

He was just under six-foot, with messy silver hair and piercing golden cat-slit eyes; he was wearing what looked like a loose, white trench-coat that went to the backs of his knees in length, though in the front it was only buttoned just across his mid-section in one place and the fabric draped around his legs rather than covering them. Beneath the coat he was wearing a tight-fitting, very-light gray turtleneck shirt, which I assume had long sleeves, and loose white gi pants. On his brow, the anarchy symbol was still visible.

Hiei didn't look surprised by the transformation, and just gave a small smirk and said, "Spike. Yes, it has been a while, hasn't it?"

I realized as 'Spike' walked closer that he wasn't wearing a turtleneck shirt, but a white collar necklace. He was standing just before Hiei, now, and even though he was inches taller than the fire demon, I could tell that by both of their minds' calculations of their personalities, they saw each other at eye-level. "I'm surprised to see you here. Especially with someone who smells…dare I say she smells almost human?"

"Demon," Hiei corrected immediately. "She only smells human because she also has a human form."

"I see." Spike's gaze was locked on me, and I felt almost _required_ to look away, but I resisted and kept eye contact with him as best I could over my shoulder. That is, until one of the cats in front of my shifted and acquired a human-like form, walking toward me. I realized, pissed off with myself, that I shrank away from him a bit. These creatures were powerful—more so than the average demon, and more so than even the A-class I had seen, save for maybe Hiei, though he was S-class.

The cat (For lack of better words. Though he looked like a man now, I could tell the cat was his natural form. Maybe it was just because that was what I had seen first.) before me also had light hair, though his was white rather than silver, and it was long and tied in a loose ponytail (His hair was about halfway to his waist, and the tie was near the end. _Very_ loose ponytail.), though his bangs were chin-length and curled around his defined cheekbones, slightly obscuring one eye. He wore something similar to the one Hiei had called Spike, though his long-coat and shirt had sleeves which stopped just before his shoulders, and it seemed he _was_ wearing a shirt with a high neck, not a collar like Spike's. His cool blue-gray eyes swept over me in a way similar to Hiei, and I nearly melted beneath his gaze. "The girl is injured." I blinked at him when he pointed that out, wondering his reasoning for it as obviously these cats didn't feel inclined to help us, but in that blink of my eyes he was in front of me about three inches, and he had a strong hold on my left arm. I bit my lip at the pain his grip inflicted, because of how close to my shoulder it was and how tight. "What should I do with her?"

I heard metal sliding against something and Hiei's dangerously low voice told me he had unsheathed his sword. "Let go of her."

The cat didn't move; his eyes hadn't shifted from Spike since he spoke the first time.

I heard a slight rustling of fabric, which I took as a shrug from Spike, and he said, "Release her, Zer. I'm sure the Jaganshi can explain his reasoning for bringing her here."

Immediately the grip was gone and the cat-thing, which was still confusing me because his energy was so odd, was spontaneously six feet away from me and close to the line of cats who had yet to morph. "My lord," the one called Zer said, as if in place of a simple 'okay' that could have sufficed. I guessed they had some sort of formal code or something.

"Really, though, Hiei, why are you here?" There was a cool, crisp sort of curiosity in Spike's voice, but it was still somehow dangerous in a way I couldn't describe. I now realized why Hiei had wanted to leave so badly.

"The rift-tear we went through was supposed to lead us to her world—" For some reason I felt indignant at being called 'her', rather than Hiei using or introducing my name to Spike. "—but instead it brought us here."

"You landed in the bay, by the looks of it," Spike noted. Though Hiei's hair was fully-spiky (I still can't figure out how he did that.) again, we were both still pretty wet.

"Unfortunately," Hiei agreed. He didn't seem to be as on-edge as before, though I couldn't figure out why, since the danger I assume he had been thinking of was right in front of us. "We were attempting to make our way to that rift-tear—" Hiei nodded to where we had been heading. "—when you interrupted. If you want us to leave, I suggest you allow us to resume that."

"So quick to assume," Spike said, and I could hear he was smiling. His voice was over-laid with a strange sound that I daresay was probably a purr. "Who says we want you to leave?" Though there was no sound as he did so, I could see that Spike was pacing from the corner of my eye.

"Back off, Spike," Hiei growled. The 'I will kill you if you continue' voice he had used with me earlier was back, directed at the silver-haired man in front of him.

"I'm sorry, am I upsetting you?" the cat purred, his pacing finally stopping.

"You're _boring_ me," was the correcting response, and a smirk twitched at my lips, "and you're wasting my time. Let us go before I'm forced to kill you. I doubt Tamiko would like me very much for that."

The name Tamiko ringed a bell in my mind, and it took me a moment for me to remember that Hiei had mentioned her as being Chichiro's best friend a long time ago.

"Now, Hiei, you never cared about my sister's view on you before."

"And I still don't, you incompetent feline, but I'd rather not find out what her anger would be like should I deliver the news that I murdered her brother out of annoyance."

Spike chuckled lightly. The sound should have released me from my tenseness, but the type of chuckle he gave only made me feel worse. It was amused and creepy…worse yet, I think it was mocking. "Fine, fine, I'll let you go. But I'd like to keep the girl."

As the attention was drawn back to me, I felt my stomach twist nervously, and I switched my over-the-shoulder gaze from Spike to Hiei. Hiei's expression told me he wasn't planning on leaving without me, a fact I was very glad for.

"Not a chance. Ketsue is coming with me, and we're both leaving your world."

"And do what, world-hop?" Spike asked in a chiding tone. Apparently, this 'world-hopping' term was much more common than I thought. "You shouldn't do that. You could end up somewhere where you're worse off than here." Spike's eyes flashed to meet the orbs of the one he'd called Zer fleetingly, unnerving me, before he spoke again. "And you wouldn't want to endanger your demon girl by doing that, would you?" As soon as the sentence finished, I found myself a few feet away from Hiei and with both of my arms pinned at my sides by strong arms. I didn't have to look up to know that Zer had me in his hold.

Hiei glanced at me once, seemingly without concern, but I noticed his grip tightened on his unsheathed katana. "I'd much rather throw her to a group of flesh-eating scorpios than leave her with you." By the way he said 'scorpios', he wasn't misspeaking and meaning scorpions. I decided by the 'flesh-eating' the proceeded the term that I didn't want to meet scorpios any time soon.

"That can be arranged, if you like," Spike replied as if Hiei had honestly wanted to chuck me into a pit full of the creatures he mentioned. "But I'd say we'd be a bit less hostile than scorpios."

"Uhm…Hiei?" I finally decided to speak from Zer's grasp. "I'd really like for you to hurry up. I think this guy's breaking my arms."

Hiei's gaze shifted to Zer. "Are you applying that much pressure?" he asked seriously.

"No," was Zer's simple, innocent response.

"Stop complaining, Ketsue," Hiei growled at me, satisfied by the response he'd received, and faced Spike again.

I glared indignantly at Hiei, then decided to glare at Zer, leaning my head back to look up at him. He was much taller than I'd originally given him credit for, but he was still no giant. He was maybe 6'5". "So…your name is Zer?" I could hear Hiei and Spike talking in front of me, but I ignored them.

"Zerathus," he responded. "Only Lord Spike is allowed to call me anything otherwise, unless it is the name I just gave you preceded with a title."

I stared at him. He was being completely serious, but he was speaking really oddly, and very formal. "…Uh…huh." I looked back at Hiei. It seemed his conversation with Spike had somehow gone to mental speech in the slight time I had stopped paying attention, but by their body language, neither of them were winning the argument, but neither were losing, either. Bored, I looked back up at Zerathus. "So…by title you mean I can call you 'The Zerathus'?" Only his right eye twitched in response. Yes, I could enjoy myself with annoying him. "Or…Could I even call you something like 'Pansy Zerathus'? Something degrading? I mean, you didn't tell me exactly what title to use on y—"

"Lord Spike." Spike looked up as Zerathus called him, a very light, barely noticeable trace of exasperation in his toneless voice. "Can I kill her?"

"No, Zer, you can't. Sorry."

Zerathus was quiet a moment, then he said, "Can I tear her jaw off? Or at least cut her tongue out?"

"Fine, fine, go ahead. But at least wait until she annoys you again rather than simply doing it out of spite." Spike's attention returned to Hiei.

I 'meep'ed quietly and bit my lip, feeling like I was shrinking, and decided annoying Zerathus was not as fun as I had thought.

My interruption broke the mental conversation between Spike and Hiei, and they began speaking out loud again. "Last offer, Hiei. Leave the girl with us and I won't harm either of you and you will be permitted to leave."

"Last response," Hiei growled back stubbornly, mirroring the beginning of Spike's words. "Let us both go and leave without issue, and I won't be forced to decapitate you all."

"Uh, sorry, but am I allowed to ask what you guys want with me without getting my jaw ripped off?" I put in. Spike's interest in me was a bit unnerving.

"You should have asked permission before the question, not during it," Zerathus snarled in a monotonous but somehow venomous voice, and his grip on my arms tightened enough to make me give a small, feeble whimper. It was pissing me off that someone so easily had advantage over me; I wasn't used to being ordered around or beaten by anyone but Hiei anymore.

"Don't, Zer." I opened my eyes from their closed position thanks to my automatic flinch from Zerathus's grip. Hiei's sword was at Spike's throat; Spike only looked annoyed, not afraid, or even wary, but the threat of Hiei's katana still received the desired response, and Zerathus's hold on me loosened up slightly. "If you must know," Spike continued, and to my irritation, he was talking to Hiei even though I had asked the question. I decided (just so that I didn't foolishly start trying to kill Spike and get my arms ripped off by Zerathus) that it was because Hiei had probably been wondering the same thing. Maybe he had even asked Spike that when they were talking through mind-speech, "there's a rumor making its way around Makai that the girl is wanted at the Dark Tournament this year."

My eyes widened, and I looked over at Hiei. His body was rigid, and for some reason his expression looked…worried? Maybe that wasn't the word, but I couldn't think of any better—it was close enough to worry. His response, however, was said in a flat, monotone voice. "You should know better than to listen to rumors, Spike. That's all it is. The demons in Makai have no reason to want Ketsue for a tournament." The way he added 'for a tournament' made me realize they _did_ have a reason to want me otherwise. They were, after all, trying to kill me for reasons I still didn't understand.

Spike smirked, allowing the expression to slide across his face slowly, and he made a 'hmm'-like noise. "I've also heard that the demons are attempting to assassinate your demon girl." I found myself not minding his label for me, probably only because when he talked to Hiei he always said 'your'. Oddly, Hiei didn't ever correct him on it, which I found extremely weird. Again, though, I certainly didn't mind. "So maybe they've just decided that way is either taking too long or it isn't working, so the tournament may be their best bet at killing her."

"Even so," Hiei replied, never moving his katana from Spike's throat, "that still doesn't explain why you want her. Just because the demons are possibly intending on bringing her into the Dark Tournament doesn't mean you would want her. Shadowcats are generally neutral in such affairs, aren't they?" It wasn't a real question, and it was said in an 'I'm right and you know I am' voice.

The mention of the Dark Tournament had greatly distracted my focus. I loved fighting, and one-on-one matches with higher-level demons sounded…well, fun. Ever since my skills and energy had improved, the lesser demons and Escque had begun to bore me, but the fights against the A-class thrilled me. There was no telling how awesome a tournament of stronger demons would be to me.

"True." Spike's voice brought me out of my brief thoughts. "I can't say my interest in her is completely neutral, however."

Hiei narrowed his eyes at the cat. "What do you mean?"

Spike reached his hand up nonchalantly and pressed a finger to the tip of Hiei's sword. "Maybe I'd be more inclined to tell you if you moved your sword."

"And maybe I'd be _less_ inclined to destroy you if you started explaining," the fire demon snapped back. I couldn't help but smile lightly at that.

"Unfortunately—" I wasn't able to see him move, but Spike was behind Hiei and out of the way of his sword before I could blink. "—I can't tell you so easily why we want her. But I will allow you to leave…If your 'Ketsue' can defeat one of my soldiers."

I sighed inwardly. Seriously, couldn't people just let us go without fight for _once_?

"Show me the fighter," Hiei replied, surprising me. I had bet on him attacking Spike or saying he wouldn't go for the terms, but he almost seemed as curious as Spike about whether or not I could defeat one of the…had he called them shadowcats?

Spike shifted his position, leaning on one leg and drawing a hand to his chin, looking up at nothing in particular. "Hmm. Shall I pit her against Zerathus or Asakari?"

I watched as a black shadowcat near Spike morphed, this time revealing a female form. She was shorter than Spike by a few inches, but she was well-built and dressed in a loose, sleeveless black gi. Her bright-red hair, whose color matched Kurama's, was spiky (Not like literal spikes, but like…well, think emo hair.) save for her bangs, which, like Zerathus, were chin-length and curled around her face; her bangs were black. She was obviously a fighter, and a skilled one at that; she'd be a challenge if this was the person Spike wanted me to fight. "My lord."

Spike turned to the woman. "Asakari. Do you want to fight the girl, or something?" He smirked again. "You don't usually show this much enthusiasm toward fights, unless you think they're worthy."

"No, sir," Asakari replied with a small smirk of her own. "I do not wish to fight her…at least, not now. I would like to in the future, but this belongs to Zerathus. Don't insult the girl's—" Obviously, I had quickly earned another label: 'The girl'. Not quite as fun as 'your demon girl'. "—power. You know she could easily defeat me, given the initiative to do so."

"I wouldn't say 'easily'," the male shadowcat responded with a shrug, "but you're right. Zerathus would stand a better chance at defeating her."

I sighed again, this time not bothering to cover it up. Hiei glanced over at me, seeming to size me up against Zerathus and turned back to Spike. "And if we refuse?"

"I'm afraid then you'll have to fight _all_ of us," Spike purred, making it easily clear we had two simple choices, both of which involved me fighting, but the battle royal seemed to be a bit more dangerous.

Hiei's gaze shifted back to me, and I guessed that meant he didn't care either way. I wrenched myself free of Zerathus's hold, having not tried seriously before, and faced him. "Guess I'm fighting you, then."

Zerathus towered over me. I seemed to realize again and again how much I underestimated his height. "How far will you permit me to go, my Lord?" The shadowcat before me had his eyes on Spike again.

Spike only shrugged. "Whatever is necessary to beat her. If she decides to resist surrender at an obvious point of your victory, kill her if you find it needed. But otherwise, please keep it to simple mauling."

I restrained a shiver and watched as Zerathus finally let his blue-gray cat-slit eyes rest on me. "What happens if I loose?" I felt the need to ask, imagining a chibified version of me as a spirit.

"Well, if Zerathus manages not to kill you, then we'll use you for our purposes as originally intended. And if he can't keep you alive, well…we'll let Hiei leave, I suppose. I have no reason for him to stay."

I glared over at the fire youkai. "If I die, I expect you to beat these guys for me, got it?" I growled at him. "'Cause if you don't, I am _so _going to kick your ass to spirit world and back, dead or not."

Hiei gave a light shrug to indicate he understood (Even though he didn't seem to care much. Oh, how easily he was able to piss me off…good motivation, though.).

"Where shall we fight?"

I looked up at Zerathus. "What, we can't fight here? I think this is good enough."

Clearly shadowcats had some sort of rule against that, because he looked at me like I had two…well, I was going to say 'like I had two heads', but being that such a thing was possible for demons, I guess in this world, that look would only be afforded to a human.

"Excuse her, Zer," Spike said. "Remember, she doesn't know the ways of this world—she comes from a realm infested with humans."

Zerathus nodded, but his eyes had never left me. Guess he was really, _really_ good at focusing. I doubted that was good news for me. "We have to find a turf equal to both of us in positive and negative aid to our abilities," he explained. "Being that you would be at a lesser advantage here, we must find somewhere to better suit your needs."

…Apparently, I underestimated a lot about this guy, not just his height. I guess shadowcats had some form of honor-code just like the one Kuwabara so annoyingly mentioned in almost every one of his fights. "So, where do you suggest, then?" I asked. "I've never been to this world, so I have no clue where anything is."

Zerathus pointed to his left, his eyes still on me. Damn, that was seriously starting to creepy me out. "There's a plateau about five miles in that direction. It should suit both out skills equally."

"Er…right." I looked left, then down at my injured leg. "Anyone else forget spontaneously about the fact that I'm injured?" No one responded, and I sighed. "Okay, guess only I did. Huh. Anyway, there is no way in hell I'd be able to walk, run, crawl or fly there, so scratch that unless anyone can—"

"I'll get you there," Hiei offered.

I glared at him. He was obviously missing my point. "And then there's the fact that my dodging will be slowed down by my leg, and the fact that I can barely stand. Oh, and then there's—"

"Ketsue, in case you forgot, we don't have a choice. Unless you'd like to repeal your previous decision and decide to battle all of these incompetents with me, you have to try."

I considered for a moment, glancing from Zerathus to Hiei and back, then sighed. "Uh, okay. I guess I am changing my decision."

Hiei grinned lightly, and was suddenly next to me. "Good. I was hoping you would say that." He unsheathed his katana.

"Oh, and Hiei?" I said as I summoned my energy sword in my left hand. He simply used his 'hn'-like question noise in response. "That whole get-revenge-if-I-die thing is still expected. So do be sure to kill all these jerks."

Hiei smirked again. "Consider it done."

I faced the shadowcats before me, but rather than drawing weapons like I had assumed they would, they morphed back into their cat forms. "How dull," Spike muttered. "I had so hoped on some good sport before I had to kill you." He was talking to me, I could tell, but he targeted Hiei as he sprang. I, however, wasn't able to keep an eye on that, as Zerathus leapt at me, his wide, lion-like jaws revealing many, large and pointy fangs I was in no hurry to meet.

I would have dodged, if that had been possible. Unfortunately, with my leg injury, I wasn't able to do much in the way of dodging. I did step back and put out my sword as a defense, slashing at Zerathus, but I was shoved roughly from behind and into Zerathus's bared jaws. All of the teeth in his bottom jaw seemed to make contact with my body in slow motion, his canines lodging into my flesh just beneath my collarbone, and he his top jaw crunched into my shoulder and tore as he flipped over me and released his bite. Of course he had bitten my left shoulder, as is to be expected by my luck, and I couldn't even muster a noise of pain. However, just as with the time the human had punched my arm at the wrong time, I soon felt my pain overcome with rage.

You have to realize, wounds didn't usually piss me off. If you've followed my story correctly, you'll realize it was only my left shoulder that ever made me angry when hit. I had, at this point, had worse pain than the shoulder, and I have still yet to figure out why it angered me so much to feel someone wound the shoulder worse. I do have a suspicion, however, that it was because the wound was initially Hiei's, and the thought of anyone wounding Hiei naturally pissed me off.

Whatever the case, it became pretty clear to Zerathus that he had made a mistake, and as I whipped around, my eyes suddenly improving drastically in their sight as they reverted to cat-slits, he sprang backward, glaring warningly at Asakari. The female shadowcat was the one who had pushed me from behind onto Zerathus's teeth, but apparently the male shadowcat that she had aided decided that it would be safer for her not to try and help anymore.

Wise choice.

I didn't even notice the pain of my leg anymore, and as I was fully taken by my demon blood, I slashed out with elongated claws at Zerathus. His dodging skills were expert, and I was only able to clip a few of his whiskers as I lashed out at him, but my speed appeared to be more than he had bargained for, and he began to lead me away from the small clearing Hiei had stopped us in. I didn't notice until we were there and my rage had near-expired, but he had made me bring myself to the plateau. (Of course, after I realized this he earned quite a glare, compliments of yours truly.) "So, cat. Decided to drag me here?"

"Now that you can obviously take care of yourself," Zerathus replied, making it clear Hiei had not followed us. He was probably busy with the rest of the shadowcats. After all, he had to face all of the others, while I only had to fight one, "I saw no reason to respect your choice, since you made it for the sake of your injuries. In this state you can handle battling me with them."

I rolled my eyes, then shrugged. "Okay, fair enough. Do you intend to fight me 'til you die like all the jerks I usually fight, or will you surrender when you realize I'm better than you?" I carefully accented 'when' so that he realized I hadn't said 'if', giving a falsely arrogant smirk. Honestly, I wasn't sure how my powers compared to him, but I decided to sound vastly more confident than I was so that he'd think I was more foolish than he would have otherwise. People tend to get more careless when they think they're fighting against a fool.

"If you should prove too much for me, I will accept defeat. I have no intention of dying. Nor do I have intention of loosing, girl, so brace yourself."

I had begun to notice I was feeling light-headed, and I glared at the deep bite mark Zerathus had inflicted on me. My shoulder was bleeding freely, and quite a bit, and I decided I actually liked being able to feel the normal amount of pain, not having it dulled by my lack of notice when I was transformed, because then I was actually aware of how much blood I was loosing. I drew my energy sword anyway, finding it to be a strangely darker red color than usual. Too bad I had, in my light-headed blood loss, forgotten what Hiei had told me about life energy.

"Bold move," Zerathus commented, springing at me. I realized that I was automatically perceiving him as a cat, but that his form had changed back into something human-like. His movements were cat-like despite the fact he was moving on two legs, and for some reason I had to focus my eyes to see a human form rather than the cat. He crashed against me, shoving my sword back. Normal enough…if you looked past the fact that I felt claws dig into me where his feet were, and he had shoes on (And no, the shoes did not have claws.).

Then I understood. "Your human form," I breathed, not noticing the claws any longer. "It's an illusion!"

"Perceptive," Zerathus commented, sounding mildly surprised, but his eyes and face were expressionless. I had noticed that about all the cats—even if they did wear countenances that displayed emotion, their eyes still lacked any form of it.

I smirked, letting my concentration fade. As my eyes blurred a bit, the image of Zerathus before me reverted to that of his cat form. I realized that by making it seem that he was in a human form, he could easily attack me in ways possible only by feline paws and not human hands without me realizing it until too late. "Clever scheme," I complimented, "but you failed." I lashed my sword at him, having no effect, and drew it back into my body, forming energy kunais and thrusting the smaller weapons out at him.

"I have not failed yet," Zerathus told me in a chiding tone. His form was suddenly back to a two-legged man, and he kicked off the ground and flipped, landing behind me and lashing out his leg to catch me on the back of my neck.

…This was really starting to tick me off. He could change at will, but at the same time make illusions when he changed so I couldn't tell if the new form was real or not. It was clear that even in my full demon form he had the advantage.

"Do you know why the demons want me for the Dark Tournament?" I asked as I dodged another kick, barely, and shot more energy kunais at him.

"You've become almost as large a boogeyman to the apparitions as Yusuke Urameshi. They want you dead."

"Well, yeah, I knew the last part already." I rolled my eyes. Demons wanting to kill me when I didn't know why really got on my nerves sometimes. Hiei had said something about it being because I was going to stop them from taking over the world, or something like that, but I hadn't gotten what he meant and would remain clueless for a long while. "But why have I become a 'boogeyman'? I'm not really a Spirit Detective…I've never even met Koenma." I added 'If he exists' under my breath, since Hiei had never said anything about the toddler prince that I recalled and he often said that many things in the anime were wrong.

"You may not work for Lord Koenma, but you support his cause nonetheless. And those demons who escape you, as well as Mistress Nirvana and Master Atenre, do spread word of your fights with Lord Hiei."

I stared at him briefly, only cut off by the need to block a swing of a strange, curved blade he had random drawn, which seemed to be attached to his arm by a long, metal wristband. "Did you just call him Lord Hiei?"

"And what else would you have me call him?" Zerathus replied, looking clueless.

"You called me _girl_. I didn't even get to be called by my _name_, and you call Hiei _Lord_ Hiei!"

Zerathus made it seem that he thought _I_ was clueless. "Of course. You have not proven yourself worthy of a title."

I twitched, then lashed out with my claws, slicing the curved blade he had been swinging in half, my nails making contact with the right side of his ribs. "In that case, tell me: how do you know Hiei? You and Spike seem pretty familiar with him."

His look told me he thought I was asking too many questions, and I figured that there was probably some other formality of shadowcats that you shouldn't talk to them while fighting, but he answered anyway. "Lord Hiei came to us about ten years ago alongside Lord Kurama and Lordess Tamiko to fight the war with us against the Superiors."

"…Is Lordess even a word?" A swipe with the same curved blade, which somehow had regenerated like it had its own healing powers, was the answer I received. "And what the hell are the Superiors?"

"They are the Superiors of our kind," he responded. "I would have thought that would be obvious."

"What makes 'em so superior? And why did you fight them if they're your kind?"

"Odd question coming from a demoness who battles against demons daily," Zerathus noted. "They are larger and more intelligent than our species." _The intelligence thing is hard to believe,_ I thought without sarcasm. These shadowcats seemed, for lack of better words, brilliant. "They rule over the lowlands and outskirts of our territory and are generally neutral in all affairs, like us, but fifteen years ago they broke their ways by attacking us."

"I thought you said Hiei came to help you about ten years ago?"

Zerathus's weapon swung around again and slashed across my cheek, making a deep cut that sprayed blood into my left eye and momentarily half-blinded me. I ignored it as best I could, not wasting time or exposing myself to attack by reaching up and wiping it away. "Well, do you think that the war could not be held five years without him?"

I twitched. I really did feel quite unintelligent that day, but I was able to actually counter this one. "But you said he came with Tamiko and Kurama. I thought Tamiko was Spike's sister? Doesn't that mean she was pretty important to your shadowcats during the war?"

"Yes, and we spent many years looking for her, but we did not find her until five years after the war had already begun. She had moved to the human world with her almost-mate, Lord Kurama, but we had presumed her to be in the demon world because of her previous alliance with Lordess Chichiro. We could not delay the war for the fact we could like find Lordess Tamiko, you must understand."

I twitched. Again. "You call Chichiro with 'Lordess' in front of her name…and you _still_ refuse to call me by my _name_?"

"Again, you have not prov—"

"I _am_ Chichiro, jack-ass!" I spat, my claws smacking across his face and finally making a large amount of contact—the best injury I had given him yet.

Zerathus's hand shot out and snatched my wrist, and I heard a sickening snap as it cracked too far to the side. "But Lordess Chichiro would _never_ flinch at a broken wrist," he purred, using emotion in his tone for the first time.

My eyes narrowed in pain. "Shut up. I'm her reincarnation."

"Ah, yes. She was killed by Lord Hiei some time ago, didn't she?"

Again with the mention of Hiei killing Chichiro. So why was it that everyone knew that Hiei killed Chichiro and why but me, Chichiro's reincarnation? "Do you know why?" I asked, my concentration on my broken wrist shot by my curiosity.

"Why? Don't _you_?" My memory toward the wrist improved very quickly when Zerathus punched his claws into the fractured bone. Er, formerly fractured. It was now something closer to shattered. I just hoped Kurama's healing power was as good as I thought it was.

Suddenly, a large explosion sounded from far off, and Zerathus's eyes widened as they turned to look out toward the clearing where Hiei and the other shadowcats were. The same clearing, of course, that the explosion had come from. "Spike!" Zerathus hissed, not using the word 'Lord' in his concern, and with a rip of his claws (As they were still conveniently—for him—imbedded in my wrist), he sprang up and disappeared.

I suddenly became aware of my leg hurting, the fact that my shoulder was still bleeding, and the throbbing due to my wrist being horridly shattered. I sighed heavily, feeling my body reverting to my usual transformed state that wasn't human but wasn't my full demon form, either. My full demon form was only activated, at least as recent events had proven, when someone hit my shoulder hard enough (or bit it) and sent me into a great enough amount of rage that my demon form took over.

I had to keep myself from falling over thanks to the pain and blood loss, but I managed well enough to limp down from my place on the plateau and walk back to the clearing. It took about forty-five minutes to run (Or try to. The only reason I didn't trip from all my limping was because of the form I was in) the five miles back to where Hiei, Zerathus and the other shadowcats were. When I slowed and walked into the small area that lacked trees, my eyes widened slightly, and I let myself fall backward and sit down clumsily.

"…Shit." It was empty save a large amount of scattered blood. I was alone.


	21. Ketsue, Kidnapped?

**Disclaimer:** Neither Hiei, nor Yu-Yu-Hakusho is mine.

**Claimer:** Chichiro and Ketsue are mine, Kaze is BritKit, Aria is FoxWitch. While not all the characters are mine, all writing, storylines and concepts in this fanfiction (Save any YYH references) are.

* * *

_When I slowed and walked into the small area that lacked trees, my eyes widened slightly, and I let myself fall backward and sit down clumsily._

"…_Shit." It was empty save a large amount of scattered blood. I was alone._

I was in a world I didn't recognize, I was injured and unable to move around or fight as well as usual, and worse off, now I was alone and with no idea where Hiei was. I wasn't even sure what to do, and I glanced around and tried to keep myself from becoming worried due to the blood on the ground…chances were, it wasn't Hiei's blood. At least that's what, according to his skills, it should have been; then again, I didn't see any bodies, shadowcats or otherwise. I could only hope that either shadowcats buried their dead like humans and wouldn't have left them here, or that no one had died. Even then, there was still the possibility of Hiei being seriously injured…

I shook my head. I couldn't panic—I already told myself I wouldn't. _Stop being such a pessimist and think about this._ _The fight could have gone somewhere else, or maybe they reached some sort of agreement…_ I looked to the blood on the ground, grimacing. _Oh, yes, it really looks like a peaceful agreement was found._ I sighed and decided I just wasn't an optimistic person. "Fuck," I whispered, then stood. Even Zerathus wasn't in the clearing, which I found only mildly weird, since I had gotten here almost an hour after he had left.

Waiting only a few seconds more in a shaky standing position, I finally turned and walked back into the forest in the direction me and Hiei had been heading. "Time to explore," I mumbled to myself; waiting around was not only most likely pointless, but I doubted it was safe, either. This world was, as said before, unfamiliar to me, and Hiei wasn't around to rescue my ass if I got myself into some sort of trouble. At least if I went and 'toured' the area, maybe I'd stumble across Hiei or some shadowcat that I could try and beat information out of.

…Ah hah, _riiight_. I doubted I could beat anything out of anyone right then. But, still, even if I was captured by the shadowcats (I wouldn't resist it, being that I wouldn't leave without Hiei, and I knew they wouldn't kill me because they wanted me for something. That 'something' made me wary, but it could be used to my advantage if I didn't piss them off like I had Zerathus), most likely that would bring me to Hiei or let me know where he was and if he was okay. He had been with the shadowcats before, after all.

The forest was huge. No, more than huge. It was…Well, I don't even know if there was a good word for how gigantic it was. Let's just say I'm amazed I didn't get lost, if it's possible that I wasn't lost in the first place.

I made my way toward the rift tear, all the way taking in the strange scents of this new world. There were too many to decipher from one another, and I doubted I would have been able to anyway, being that I didn't know what the scents belonged to. The entire forest had a faint blood smell, however, no matter where I went, and I was surprised I hadn't noticed it earlier. It wasn't just my own blood I smelled, which was something I had considered, because I knew the scent of my own blood. _No wonder Hiei wanted to leave here so bad_, I thought for not the first time that day. _Even without the shadowcats, this place seems pretty unwelcoming. Not a tourist site, at any rate._ I couldn't really smell many shadowcat scents, however, and all of the ones I did pick up on were fresh, like the shadowcats had only been here a day or two longer than Hiei and I. _Maybe this isn't their world after all._

I quickly began to realize that I wasn't getting any closer to the rift-tear. No matter how long I spent walking toward it, it never got any bigger or seemed any closer. Maybe it was shrinking, or something whacky like that, but even so that wasn't a very comforting idea. I didn't want to be stuck in a different world. I just hoped Hiei hadn't left without me, though I doubted he would have, since he had refused to before when Spike wanted me to go with him and the other cats.

Stopping where I stood, I looked up into the dark branches of the nearest tree and realized that they were far too dark to just be shadowed by the tree's own leaves. The sky was darkening. I sprang into the branches and leapt to the top of the tree, standing on the highest branch that was thick enough that it could hold me, and looked out across the trees. They seemed endless, and I could see nothing else for miles around. The rift-tear was just as far away from me as it had been before. "Damn it!" I growled, turning to look behind me toward the beach. I couldn't see the beach now, of course, with how far I had come, but I knew which direction it had been. "Hiei, where _are_ you?" I sat down on the branch and leaned against the trunk of the tree with a heavy sigh. This really didn't look good. There were too many things I didn't know about this place. I didn't even know where it was, for starters, nor the creatures who lived in it, whether it was safe to sleep or even to be in the tree, or if the nights lasted as long as in the human world. After all, this new world may not have the same day-and-night cycle as my world, and I wasn't familiar with the lengths of it either.

"Dozing off in an unfamiliar world? That hardly seems intelligent to me."

I stood up as soon as he began to speak, but when I recognized Hiei's voice, I wasn't sure whether to glare at him or tell him how relieved I was to see him. I chose the first. "And where the _hell_ have you been? Leaving me in this 'unfamiliar world' alone doesn't sound very intelligent to me, either!"

Then I actually got a good look at him; he had four, long scratches down his torso and a single, thin slash across the right side of his face. "Before you attack me due to worry or ask, I'm fine," Hiei told me, seeing my eyes scanning his wounds. "They're minor injuries."

"So, uh, what happened with you, then? Where are the shadowcats?"

"Actually, that's why I'm here. See, I didn't quite k—" I think he meant to say 'kill them', but he was cut short as he gave a swift, fleeting glance behind him then grabbed me and leapt off the branch just as it combusted and shattered into thousands of flame-covered wood chips.

I was unable to do much other than stare, but Hiei set me down and stood in front of me as a man walked out from the shadows of the forest. He was about as tall as Zerathus, maybe lacking a few inches, and he almost resembled the shadowcat, but his long hair was black. He had blue cat-slit eyes, and on his brow, as with the other shadowcats I had met, there was a dark symbol, as if burned into his flesh; his, however, was a black ankh. Behind him, another, taller (Taller even than Zerathus) shadowcat came forward. His hair was short and mildly gravity-defying, like Spike's but shorter, and he had red cat-slit eyes.

"I thought you told us you _wouldn't_ take us to your demon girl," the one with the black hair growled in a half-mocking voice. His tone actually had emotion, unlike most of the other shadowcats I had met, but not very much of it.

"Hn. And I had planned on doing just that, but I sensed her nearby and figured you would as well; better that I got to her first, don't you agree?"

I looked over at Hiei as he finished speaking. "Have you been running from these guys the entire time?"

Hiei glared at me. "Don't act like I had choice otherwise. I hate to admit it, but facing all of them at once was taxing and I don't have very much energy left." He paused a moment, then muttered, as if offended, "And I wasn't running from them. I was trying to find you and they followed me after I killed four or five of their allies. Spike decided to sic them on me."

I grinned lightly—too good of an opportunity to pass up. "So you just _happened_ to be running away from them as you were looking for me? Can't kill them?"

I could have sworn I saw Hiei's eye twitch from what I could see from his face when he was turned away from me, but when he gave me a fleeting glare he was relatively expressionless. "Actually, I'd rather not kill these idiots. I hate to use to word 'friend', but that's the closest I can find in your language to what these incompetents are to me."

"It's not my language," I spat back. "It's just the one I grew up w—" My eyes widened as the cat with the black hair began to summon an attack, and I leapt at Hiei and pushed him down just as a long, strangely-colored fire trail shot over us and just barely missed killing both of us. "Well, you might consider them almost-friends, but they sure don't seem to mind tying to kill you."

"I never thought I'd see the day," Hiei said with a smirk as he drew his sword, still positioned on the ground, "when _you_ had to rescue _me_."

"I wouldn't call it 'rescue'," I replied, standing with him and summoning my energy sword. I realized as the cats didn't attack again that they _hadn't_ been trying to kill Hiei, but just getting his attention…In a really dangerous, life-threatening way. "That's such a degrading word when used against you."

Hiei smirked. "I couldn't agree more." He sprang at the black-haired cat, slashing at him with his sword. The cat countered by shooting fire towards him, and I had to wonder what had happened to Hiei not wanting to kill them.

The taller, white-haired cat who had yet to speak was next to me before I had registered movement, and he grabbed onto my arm. I opened my mouth to speak, when his fist hit the back of my neck in a strange way, and my vision blurred and blackened as the ground rushed up to meet me.

* * *

I certainly wasn't expecting to wake up to being surrounded by shadowcats, but then again, I'm not sure I was expecting anything. I blinked, then sat up slowly. I was in a…bed?

…M'kay, then. _This is creepy. Who is this nice to their prisoner and/or enemy?_

"She's woken, my Lord." That came from the female shadowcat from before, Asakari, who was sitting, as with the others, about five feet from me. There were three other shadowcats next to her, none of which I recognized, but all of them female.

"About time. I didn't think Skyre had hit her _that_ hard, but I guess I was wrong." It didn't take me long to recognize Spike's voice, and as he walked into the room my suspicions were confirmed.

I opened my mouth to ask where Hiei was, not even bothering to ask where I was, as Hiei seemed more important at the moment than that, but my throat felt like it had been crushed and attempting to speak only sent me into a raspy coughing fit.

"Don't try and speak, Ketsueki. I doubt I'd be willing to answer most of your questions." Spike crouched next to me, and I automatically leaned backward away from him, but he only smirked. "You're at one of our temples, and I expect you to cooperate. Understand?"

I just gave him the fiercest glare I could manage, and hissed without using my voice (And somehow managing to only cough once as I asked), "Where's Hiei?"

"You do have a one-track mind, don't you?" Spike purred with amusement, then grinned at me. "I'll let you see Hiei just as soon as you do something for me."

I gritted my teeth and didn't drop my glare, but I slouched against the wall (As the bed was located in a corner. I had never been in this sort of bed; it was flatter than my bed, and it was more like a mat than a mattress.) in grudging obedience.

Spike's grin never faltered. "Good, I'm glad you intend to listen. Wouldn't want to hurt you anymore. I think that number Skyre did on your neck was enough for one day, don't you think?" Of course, I didn't answer or try to. I must say, though, glaring at Spike wasn't nearly as fun as glaring at other people…he refused to stop grinning arrogantly, if not mockingly, at me. "Now, follow me, would you? I'm sure you can manage walking on that leg if it's a short distance."

I decided not to try and mention the long run back to the clearing, or the walk away from it, simply for the sake of allowing my neck to heal. I stood and walked after him out of the paper-walled room into what looked like a marble hallway. I kept on my guard, since this _was_ shadowcat territory, and by Skyre's (At least, who I thought was Skyre. I wasn't sure if I was pairing the name to the right person, but by the neck comment from Spike before, I figured it would be the tall, short-haired shadowcat.) roughness they obviously didn't mind hurting me.

Spike turned into a large room, again paper-walled; he stood aside so I could study it. It seemed to be some sort of training area, or a dojo, because there were many practice and combat weapons hung on the walls, and there were wooden and metal posts that looked to have been attacked with blades standing in scattered positions on the floor of the room. My look alone asked Spike what this was.

"This is one of our various training rooms," Spike told me, confirming what I had guessed before. "I'd like to see what you can do, since I was cheated of watching your other fight." I glared incredulously at him. "Yes, I know you're injured. I won't make you show me yet. But I'd advise you try and train while you can anyway."

I tried to clear my throat, to see if I'd be able to speak, and it worked fairly well. "What do you want with me?" I asked in a rough, scratchy voice.

"Your throat improved quicker than I thought," Spike purred, but didn't answer and turned around, walking back into the hallway and turning right.

I growled, but decided following him was my only option. I didn't dare go anywhere else, and of the shadowcats, Spike seemed to be the one least likely to injure me. Might as well stick with him. "Why are you keeping me here?" I tried again, and he slowed for a few steps before stopping and turning to face me.

"You will be an asset to us in the Dark Tournament."

I stared at him a moment, then it shifted to a glare. "Are you saying you're entering the t—" My throat felt constricted, and I was sent into another round of coughing, but I re-started after I had recovered. "You're entering the tournament?"

"Yes. We both share a common enemy in the tournament."

"Common enemy?" I asked, blinking a single time. "Look, Spike, I don't know what you mean. I'm clueless about this tournament past the loose concept of what it is. I don't know who organized it or who the 'common enemy' is."

"If you don't want to have your head removed from your shoulders, I'd advise you call me Lord Spike. I personally don't care for formalities, but my guards tend to be a bit…over-protective of them." He began walking again, and I sighed as I followed. I was beginning to feel like a puppy. "I'm sure you've heard of Nirvana, haven't you?"

My eyes widened slightly. "Nirvana? She's going to be in the tournament?"

"Nirvana and her team are the ones whom the greatest amount of support will be directed. Her team is expected to get to the final round near indefinitely, so the real question for the tournament's final round is only singular: who will face Nirvana's team?"

I examined the walls as we walked. It seemed weird that the rooms were styled like a Japanese temple, but the halls were made of a sort of stone that, as I previously mentioned, resembled marble. "Alright, so why do you want me to fight for you?" I turned and watched Spike as he walked in front of me. "I would think you would want Hiei to fight with you. He's stronger than me, and he isn't an assassination target for demons."

"He _is_ wanted dead, though," Spike replied. In front of us, there was a door that looked to lead to the outside. I briefly looked behind us; I couldn't see the end of the hallway. This temple must be _huge_. As Spike opened the door, which looked to be metal, and walked outside, he allowed me to follow, a fact I was surprised about. I thought he would probably restrict me from following, simply because I might be able to leave and evade them. However, I didn't make the attempt at leaving; I may have been getting better at traveling on my wounded leg, but I still doubted that I'd be able to keep distance between Spike and I. "And it is true that he is stronger than you, and more experienced, but I find that you would be simpler to bribe into fighting with us. Besides, Nirvana would feel more obligated to battle us if you were fighting on our team rather than Hiei."

"So you just want me because I'm easy to obtain and because Nirvana would want to fight you guys?"

"Don't sound so offended." Spike walked past me and sat down on the grass, leaning against the wall of the temple. "You do intrigue me…greatly so. I believe you have room to grow stronger. Maybe you can even surpass Hiei."

I growled. For some reason I thought that statement was offensive rather than a compliment, maybe because I was so quick to defend Hiei rather than myself. "Don't get ahead of yourself. I could never get stronger than Hiei."

"Now, with an attitude like that, how do you expect to improve on anything?"

I started coughing again. I had actually forgotten about my throat, as my voice had returned to normal, but it seemed that I still wasn't completely better. "Shut up. Where is he?"

"I told you before: cooperate and I'll tell you. Eventually."

"You can't possibly expect to keep me wondering through the entire tournament, so I suggest you start talking if you want me to fight for you."

Spike looked up, his golden eyes flashing with interest. "Are you saying that if I tell you that you'll fight for us?"

"No, but I'd be much more inclined to be civil with you and consider it if I knew that Hiei was okay."

"Well, that's something you needn't worry about. He's perfectly unharmed."

"And? Where is he?"

"You told me before not to get ahead of myself," Spike replied, his grin (which had faded to just a smile previous) returning full-swing. "One thing at a time, Ketsueki."

I wondered for a moment if persisting would have any effect, and decided it wouldn't, so I just asked, "Why do you keep calling me that? I mean, you never heard anyone else call me Ketsueki. That I know of, the only thing you've ever seen me called is Ketsue."

"Well, it wasn't hard to figure out what 'Ketsue' was short for, but it seemed more like a nickname for people closer to you to call you. I figured Ketsueki would be the closest I'd be able to manage for a half-formal name, being that I'm sure you wouldn't want to be called Chichiro."

It seemed weird to me that he read so easily into my dislike of being called Chichiro, especially with how I acted toward Zerathus when he refused to use my name. Speaking of, "Where is Zerathus, anyway? He just disappeared after something near you guys blew up."

"Courtesy of Kent, I'm sure you mean." I assumed he meant whatever had blown up had been obliterated by someone named Kent. He didn't elaborate. "Zerathus is around. He's mostly unharmed, and faring better than you."

I made a light 'hmmph' noise as response and sat against the wall on the other side of the door, farther away from Spike than I would have been if I had just walked toward the section of wall I was closest to. "So how do you intend to force me into fighting for you?"

I sensed Spike's eyes on me, but I didn't turn to meet them and closed my own. "Well, I know you're eager to fight in the tournament. Why would you resist?"

"Because I don't know where Hiei is, and I wouldn't fight on any team unless Hiei was there with me."

"One-track mind," Spike reiterated in a purr. "I find it so amusing how attached you are to him."

"Pssht. Shut up, cat."

He snickered, then stifled his laughing; I sensed his eyes move from me. "Do you realize that we aren't in the same world that you were knocked unconscious in?"

My eyes shot open. I hadn't realized, but what he said was true. The air felt lighter and cleaner, like in Makai, and the trees before us were more like those in the human world. "Where are we, then?"

"It isn't your concern right now. But I figure that piece of information will keep you from trying to run off."

I glared sideways at him without turning my head. "Hate to sound 'one-tracked' again, but is Hiei in this world?"

"Of course not."

I grimaced when he confirmed what I had feared. No wonder he had been so confident in keeping me here. Hiei wasn't even in the same world as me, and there was no telling how far away the world he was in was. "Where is he, then?"

"Haven't we been over this? I have no intention of telling you yet."

"For fuck's sake, at least tell me what _world_ he's in."

Spike snickered again. Apparently, my anger was amusing to him. "He's either back in the world we left him in, or he's returned to Makai."

I finally turned my head to glare at him straight-on. "He wouldn't leave without me."

"Oh no?" I really didn't like Spike's tone. "And what if we had slipped and told him you were dead?"

My eyes widened, and I felt a similar anger to that of when my shoulder was hit begin to grow within me. I stood slowly, not even caring that my energy was flaring up at a fast enough rate that it was making my right arm sting horridly. It felt as though something living was tugging on my arm, as if the dragon had returned by choice and was asking to be released to devour Spike. At the moment, I was almost considering doing that. The only thing that held me back was the knowledge that Hiei wasn't around to rescue me like usual and keep me from killing myself. "If it was so simple for you to _slip_ and tell him that," I growled, my voice low and sounding completely demonic and unlike me, "then I suppose I'll just have to let my sword _'slip'_ and bleed you dry." I summoned my energy sword…with my right hand. I honestly didn't even notice myself doing it, but somewhere in the back of my mind I registered the pain of doing so and the fact that the sword was black and blue, flame-like energy, like Hiei's energy sword, rather than steel like my usual energy sword.

"Already using your right arm this soon after using the Darkness?" Spike asked, still looking amused, but somewhere in his expressionless eyes, I could see nervousness beginning to grow. "Impressive. Your healing powers are almost as great as Hiei's."

"Come now, _Lord_ Spike, do you already dare use his name again after making me so angry with it?" The voice was still not my own. I wasn't even sure I was forming the words. It was scaring me, much more than when I was in my full-demon form. At least in that form I had control over what I did, even if it was more erratic than usual. I hadn't changed form, and yet it seemed my movements were not due to my own free will. I made myself believe they were coming automatically just out of anger simply so I wouldn't scare myself further.

Spike realized I was actually going to attack him, and he drew a chain and sickle from where it had been tied on his belt, swinging the curved blade around in a leisurely way, as if to show it off before using it. I quickly analyzed that he wouldn't attack me unless I attacked him first, and that was why he was 'showing' his weapon to me rather than shooting it at me. I kept my body, which was not very much under my control anymore, from lunging at him. "Tell me his exact location, incompetent." Again, it wasn't a voice that sounded entirely like me. I could tell that it was still my voice, but it was deeper and more yami-like…fiercer. Demonic. It wasn't my intention to say 'incompetent,' either. "I know you can tell me, so I suggest you talk." Actually, I _didn't_ know that. But my voice said it anyway and it seemed to make sense afterward.

Spike sized me up with his eyes then shrugged with a smirk. "Alright, you win. He's in the Z'chor Realm with Kurama. He went back to Makai a few hours ago and fetched the demon fox and brought him to Z'chor. I don't think he believed us when we told him you were dead."

"He has a jagan, idiot, and you'll never find someone with a keener eye than Hiei. You couldn't lie to him even if you _believed_ your lie." I lowered my energy sword. My control was coming back. "Bring me to him. Take me to that realm."

"And why would I do that?" Spike asked with a smirk. "We've captured you, and you're injured. If you have to ask me to take you, obviously you wouldn't run off and try and find it yourself. You'd get hopelessly lost between worlds and probably never make it back to one you recognized."

"Exactly why you're taking me, you pompous feline." I moved quicker than I thought I was capable of with my wounded leg, and my sword was at Spike's throat in milliseconds. "That is, if you intend to keep breathing."

Spike stared at me for a moment, not with fear, but with wonder. "You really are Chichiro's reincarnation, aren't you?" He nodded. "Alright. I'll take you to Z'chor. But realize this isn't over…I will try again."

I grinned sweetly at him, knowing it only came off as creepy when I was acting this exceedingly demonic. Exactly what I was going for. "Oh, now, Spike, we both know that 'try' is all you will do. You can't possibly plan on succeeding if you're giving me up so easily."

"I don't plan on it, no," Spike replied, his face and tone serious for the first time, "but I will not settle until I know I tried the best I possibly could to succeed."

"And by that you mean death," I muttered, "because 'the best' would be until you died."

Spike grinned at me. "Nah, I wouldn't go that far. We'd still have a chance to beat you guys and face Nirvana." I smirked back at him. "I rather like you, Ketsueki," Spike admitted, starting to walk toward the forest. "I'll have to take extra care to be sure my soldiers refrain from harming you."

I blinked. To me, that sounded like some really, _really_ strange form of flirting. I chose to believe it was my imagination and followed him.

* * *

Three hours later found us falling. Rapidly. I was really starting to get sick of falling. It just wasn't a fun thing to do, especially not on a daily basis and when it was from thousands of feet up. Luckily, this was only from a few hundred feet and Spike and I both kicked off the tips of the trees and were able to land on the ground without breaking anything (though in my case I'd say breaking anything _worse_.).

I stood from my crouch after my knees and ankles stopped burning, and looked to Spike. "You do know where in this realm he is, don't you?"

Spike grinned at me again. "Of course. I know every inch of Z'chor, even if I didn't, and it wouldn't be hard for me to find him."

"Just because my patience is wearing thin, I hope that was simply a hypothetical comment."

Again, his response was a grin. He really did look cat-like; not his features, but the way his grin formed and the looks in his eyes. Like that of the Cheshire Cat. "Follow me."

I sprang after him, though I picked up on Hiei's energy signal soon and called for Spike to stop. He turned to me, looking expectant. "Okay, so here's the deal: You're a complete bastard for kidnapping me and lying to Hiei, but you're pretty cool anyway and I'd hate to see you die. Hiei's a sadistic jerk…he would _enjoy_ to see you die. So I suggest you leave before he realizes you're here with me." Spike looked at me like I was crazy, since Hiei's energy was still about ten miles away; I didn't think he had much faith in my sensing and tracking skills. "I can find him from here," I assured the cat. "Now leave, before I have to demonstrate that I can be a sadistic jerk when needed as well."

Spike nodded, giving a two-fingered wave, and leapt back the way we had come.

And then I noticed Hiei's energy coming toward me, and I turned back the way I had been headed and went to meet him halfway. …Er, _tried_ to meet him halfway. Hiei was still much faster than me, and I turned out going about a third of the distance when I spotted him as a tiny, black dot in the distance. I waved, despite the fact the action probably couldn't be seen, and continued going toward him, and within seconds he was in the tree in front of me. "Hiei!" I stopped on the branch I was on and grinned.

"I thought Spike was feeding me lies," Hiei said, giving a light smile (Well, more like smirk. But I can pretend it was a genuine smile.) back, revealing a single fang.

"Yeah, as you can see, I got pissed off enough that my threats actually worked, and I 'talked' him into bringing me here."

Hiei nodded with a short 'heh'. "What did he say to you while you were still his captive?"

"Meh, just something about wanting me on his team for the Dark Tournament, or something like that about something like that."

Hiei stared at me, then snickered quietly. "I never thought I'd actually be glad to hear your half-English gibberish."

"'Half-English'?" I asked, pretending to be offended. I thought he meant that my sentence hadn't made much sense.

"Yes. You're speaking half-Demon, half-English again."

I mentally sweat-dropped. "Er, 'again'? I remember talking in Demon once, but that's it. And I don't recall it being half-English."

"You rarely talk fully English anymore. You lapse into Demon and Japanese in almost every conversation."

"…That's…actually really cool."

Hiei shook his head at me, then turned to look behind him. I could see the shape of someone else approaching.

"Kurama?" I guessed, earning a nod.

The spirit fox arrived within a minute, and smiled at me. "Glad to see Hiei was right."

"About Spike being a lying bastard? Yup." I grinned back at him, then looked to Hiei. "So, does the fact that he's here mean that you found a rift-tear that could get us back to Makai?"

"Hn. Of course I did."

Hiei's arrogance always made me smile. I usually hated other people's arrogance, but Hiei's was just what made him…Hiei. "Great. So, can we go back, then?"

He nodded and flickered from my sight. Kurama looked sideways at me. "Well, despite his calm demeanor, he really was quite relieved when he sensed your energy." He squinted the slightest bit when he thought, something I noticed him do often when he found something weird. "Actually, he sensed your energy far before I could ever dream to, and before I thought even _his_ abilities allowed. At least, his abilities without his jagan. He didn't use it."

I just gave Kurama a lopsided grin. "That's Hiei for you. Always unpredictable." I offered no guess as to why that had happened, though I had quite an obvious one. I wasn't sure if Kurama was like Yusuke about my relationship with Hiei, but if he was, I definitely didn't want to spark any further problem for myself by mentioning the fact that Hiei cared about me as reasoning for him being able to sense me easier than anyone else. "Shall we?"

Kurama agreed and I followed him back to the rift-tear, not surprised to find Hiei sitting on a branch near-by and looking quite bored with waiting. "Time to go home," Kurama mumbled, and thrust himself off the branch and up into the rift-tear, disappearing back to Makai.

"Home," I quoted quietly, finding an involuntary smile spreading across my lips, and I went after him, sensing Hiei behind me.

That was the first time I realized that 'home' was officially my word for Makai, and that I didn't particularly want to go back to Ningenkai. But, rest assured, I would find in the next few months it would definitely not be the last time.(1)

* * *

After we landed in Makai and walked (Hiei and Kurama decided to go easy on me and didn't make us run, and Hiei actually, uncharacteristically, waited and walked with us.) a few miles toward the rift-tear that would take us back to Ningenkai, I requested that we stopped somewhere so I could take a quick power-nap. Hiei had confirmed my suspicions that we really weren't anywhere close to the rift-tear back to the human world, so I figured I should get a bit of rest before we made our way back. The two demons had agreed to it, and I'd sat down in the first comfortable tree I could find and was immediately out.

It was dark when my eyes finally opened again, and I could sense Hiei above me a few branches away, and that Kurama was near us but not in the immediate area. I realized that my wrist was healed most of the way when I pushed myself lightly off the trunk of the tree into a sitting position (I hadn't been lying down, exactly, but I had been slouching.). Lifting my arm to examine it closer, I turned it palm-up and found that the claw marks from Zerathus's claws were also just simple scars now; it only felt as though I had twisted my wrist, not had the bones excruciatingly splintered.

"Finally awake?"

I jumped lightly, then leaned over the branch to meet eyes with Kurama. "Uh, yeah. Hey. I didn't even sense you coming."

"Your energy hasn't fully recovered yet, and so it effects your spiritual awareness as well." He smiled. "I see you noticed that you're mostly healed."

I then pulled my right leg up so that my knee was against my chest, and rolled up the torn bottom half of my jean leg to find that my leg wound was minor, now, as well. My neck didn't hurt, either. "How'd that happen, exactly? I don't think I was asleep a short enough time for it to be called a nap, but I don't think I was out long enough for everything to heal."

Kurama laughed lightly. "No, that was me. But Hiei and I figured it would be best for you to rest as long as needed. Your body isn't used to remaining in your demon form for such a long time, though it seems your demon blood dominates fully over your human now, and you had also lost more blood than you were aware of. We were in no hurry to return to the human realm anyway."

I got a weird feeling that Kurama had carefully said 'human realm' rather than 'your world'; everyone else I knew always referred to Ningenkai as my world, but apparently Kurama had picked up on the fact that it pissed me off, and almost offended me. "I noticed the blood-loss thing a while ago, but I guess I forgot. Heh. Air-headed as always." I reached up to rub my eyes with my right arm and winced, having oddly forgotten (I say 'oddly' because I hadn't let the injury slip my mind since I had gotten it. The pain of the Black Dragon Wave burning all the skin off your arm and scarring it even down to your very energy wasn't something to be easily forgotten.) that I still couldn't use it, and noted that there was a new bandage on it. "Uh…"

"You used your right arm to summon a hell-flame sword, though I doubt you were conscious of it. It burned your old bandages right off your arm."

"…Oh." I examined the bandage. There was some small square of paper at the end, above my knuckles, with a symbol I didn't recognize on it. "'Hell-flame'?"

"The Black Dragon Wave technique does not summon flames directly from hell or any sort of place close to it, but the flames of the demon realm. However, the version of the Darkness that you used _did_ use something that could almost be called hellfire, and because of that, your right arm now cannot summon normal energy anymore automatically. It can only summon hell-flames."

"…Greeeat. That really sucks, since I'm Christian and tend to stay away from that sort of thing."

Kurama chuckled. I swung my legs over the side of the branch and leapt down to stand next to him. "Don't worry. Like I said, they are flames related to direct hellfire, but different enough that you don't have to think you sinned by summoning them."

I nodded, not entirely understanding, but, like many things Hiei told me, I understood the gist of it and left it at that. "What's this?" I held up my arm, my fist clenched as usual, and indicated the small paper-symbol on top of the bandages. There were also two thin, dark chains on the bandage; one was positioned near the top, a few inches below my shoulder, and the other was wrapped around my wrist, but hung down with a small, circular charm on top of my hand.

"It's a seal," Kurama explained. "The reason your arm has been in so much pain lately is because you do not know how to control the dragon or the hell-flames like Hiei, and thus they both try and free themselves from your arm at their own will. That seal will make sure they don't do that anymore, at least not for a while."

I studied the symbol again, and for a moment, memory flickered within me and I could read it; not that it translated to English in front of my eyes or anything, but I understood its meaning. The single symbol just meant 'seal', flat-out. "Did you have to do some sort of spell or anything? This just looks like normal paper to me, and 'seal' is just a word, that I know of, and doesn't do much on its own."

"Think of it like your Ofuda. It holds tremendous power by itself, without needing to be nursed with energy constantly."

I started, looking up at Kurama. "You know about the Ofuda?"

Kurama smiled lightly at me. "How else would you and Hiei have identical scars on your shoulders?"

I blinked once, then looked down and realized for the first time (I'm slow when I wake up. You all should know that by now. It didn't even occur to me that I shouldn't have been able to see all of the bandage and that my arms were lacking sleeves.) that I wasn't wearing my hoodie, only a black camisole, and had to wonder when I had lost it. True enough, there was no longer an actual wound on my shoulder, but a long, rough white slash across it, spreading in a strange way up my arm like spidery fingers. "Ah, right." I couldn't help but stare at it. It actually looked pretty cool, when I studied it, but that didn't explain why it still hurt even though it was a scar. "But there could be some other way of that happening, right?" I looked up at him. "I mean, I don't think ofudas are the only way of people sharing pain. But, then again, I still don't know much about demons and non-humans (even though I am one and I find it incredibly unfair to be so clueless), so I could be wrong."

Kurama looked up into the tree branches at Hiei, not answering my question. "I can only wonder how he feels about it," he mumbled. "It seems that he has disengaged it for quite a while, now, but as your power increases, so will that of the Ofuda. Soon, it will be too draining for him to continue making the Ofuda null."

Kurama was just as perceptive as Hiei. Rrg. When was I going to start having that awesome demon 'I-know-everything' thing going on? "Okay, and how did you know _that_?"

He turned to me and blinked a single time. "Know what?"

"That Hiei disengaged the Ofuda."

"Well, your back isn't wounded," Kurama replied, as if it were obvious. "And Hiei's injuries from two days ago weren't transferred to you, so it must be null, for now at least."

The second half of what he said nearly flew over my head. "Back injury?" It only took me a few moments to remember a while back when Hiei had been hurt by the Escque when we were closing rifts, before I had killed the human and used the Black Dragon Wave, but I hadn't really thought about it. "Is…does he still have that wound?"

Kurama looked like he was wondering if he should have mentioned it. "Don't worry, it's healing."

"But that was so long ago!"

"Well, you should know that certain wounds take longer to heal than others."

"But…I thought it was just..." I had planned on saying an 'ordinary wound', but that wouldn't have sounded right, so I tried to think of a better word.

"Injuries like that do not take the normal amount of time to heal. He will recover, though. It's past being serious, but it will take a few more weeks to repair fully."

For Hiei to never mention or act like he was injured for this long seemed odd to me, and again I was all the more aware of how often he had to rescue me even if he was wounded. I despised being the damsel in distress, though my reasons for involuntarily becoming one were a bit more severe than the general typical story. "So…what made this different? I mean, why is it taking so long for him to get better?"

"Some attempted form of poisoning, I believe," Kurama said with a shrug. "You know Hiei well enough, so it should come to no surprise to you that he told me he didn't need any medical attention any longer and that he wouldn't allow me to further look into it."

"…Oh." I realized that I had been acting 'incredibly interested' in the ground, and I shifted my gaze upward to Hiei. "He's asleep?" I hadn't really wondered before, but he was either out cold or listening while we talked about him.

"Yes. He's been dozing with you for a few hours now." I felt Kurama's eyes, which had before been focused on the forest before us, switch to look at me. "You've been out for an entire twenty-four hours, by the way. I took a short nap myself before Hiei decided to rest."

I would have thought I had slept far too long if I hadn't been gradually slipping into the realization that my schedule generally demanded that I stay awake for a few days straight, and when it didn't then I was usually injured or had earned a day-long sleep. I sat down against the trunk of the tree, not bothering to leap into the branches like before and remaining on the ground. "Where in Makai are we?"

"I'm not sure, to be honest. I haven't toured Makai for kicks in a while." Kurama gave a light chuckle. "Hiei knows Makai far better than I, now. Remaining in relatively the same area for a month or two closing rifts was the most I've seen of this world in a little over twenty years."

I looked up at the spirit fox, whose eyes were cast off to watch the trees' leaves ruffle in the wind again. "How old are you, anyway?"

Kurama turned back to me, looking amused. "Do you mean my real age, or the one that I've been classified as because of my human form?"

I knew his amusement was due to the fact that I didn't consider myself thirteen even though my body was, and I had clearly been asking his human age. "Gah, sorry," I muttered, cursing myself. "I meant your human age, but I guess I'd actually rather know your real age."

"You needn't know it," Kurama replied with a smile. "My human form is twenty-three, though."

"Wow, really?" I studied him and decided he looked younger. Not too much, but more like eighteen or nineteen. "Damn, now I feel like a kid again."

Kurama laughed lightly. "Don't worry, you're real age is still much older than mine by a few thousand."

I grinned, not pointing out the fact that I couldn't remember most of my past-lives. "How old is Hiei? I don't think he _has_ a human age, so I'm asking his real age."

"I'm not sure, to be honest. It never came up in conversation. He's at least five-hundred, to be sure."

_Insert mental sweat-drop here._ "…Yeesh. I didn't know he was that old."

It must have been the way I said 'old', because Kurama set off into another round of muffled chuckling.

"What are you two talking about?"

I felt an automatic grin on my face and I directed my gaze upward to meet Hiei's blood-red eyes. "Just about how much of a geezer you are," I replied, wondering how long it would take him to decapitate me for that comment.

Instead, he just leapt down with a 'hn' and said, "Well, if I'm a geezer than you must be a hag. You're far older than I am, even though you don't remember it."

I glared at him. "Quiet, you."

Kurama had been watching us silently, but now that we had already stopped talking, he spoke to Hiei. "Did we wake you?"

"Yes, but it isn't as though I would have slept much longer anyway." Hiei looked to me again. "Are you rested enough, now? I'd think after such a long time you should be."

I nodded. "Yeah, let's get going."

As we traveled, I mostly stayed behind Hiei and Kurama by a least fifteen to twenty feet, following them at a leisurely pace but making sure they didn't get too ahead of me. Every once and a while, bits of their conversation would drift back to me, though I couldn't hear much of it, because they were able to talk insanely low. I could tell that they were talking about the Dark Tournament and the fact that I was wanted for it, but the technicalities of the discussion were lost.

By their body language, Kurama was winning whatever minor argument they were having, but Kurama didn't know it and Hiei was still fighting with him. I wondered if one of them actually _wanted_ me to go to the tournament, but I doubted either of them would want to go back, which they probably would if I entered it. That brought me to think of who would be on my team if I did go, which I wasn't sure if I could resist anyway, as from what I had seen from the anime (I hadn't finished every episode of the series, and was still missing a few in random places. I wasn't aware that the invited team had no choice other than death besides complying and going to compete, but I had that sort of idea in my mind.) it seemed that the 'guest' team was forced to go.

The two demons in front of me slowed, Kurama muttering something finalizing to Hiei before leaping upward into a rift-tear that I hadn't even noticed before. I had been too preoccupied with my thoughts. As I watched Hiei spring up into the rift-tear after Kurama, for once not making me go before him (Probably because we were in a world at least halfway familiar to me.), I think I heard him growl something like, "Stupid fox," but he disappeared before I could ask. Sighing, I realized I would have to use one of the nearby trees to get myself high enough to get into the rift-tear, since although I was mostly healed I still didn't have much demon energy, which obviously was the only way I'd be able to jump thirty feet straight up in one solid leap. _Damn demons,_ I thought without true venom, and positioned myself in the first tree I could get myself into and leapt at the rift-tear, half-expecting it to disappear and make me fall on my face, but luckily no such thing happened.

This rift-tear was only twenty feet off the ground. Nice change, but unexpected, and I didn't have time to save myself from a painful landing. No matter. Nothing was broken. I stood and cracked my ankle in a circle and made sure I hadn't sprained it or anything, then looked up to find Hiei and Kurama watching me from a nearby tree. "…What?"

"What took you?" Kurama asked.

I blinked. "Well, I still can't jump thirty feet, thanks. I had to get into a tree first."

"I doubt climbing a tree, even in a human form, would have taken you that long," Hiei said from Kurama's right.

"…Okay, how long did I take, then?"

"Twenty minutes. And Kurama refused to allow me to go back and get you." Hiei's blood-red glare was pin-pointed on Kurama, now, but the fox ignored it with amazing skill. It was rare that anyone could stand up to Hiei's glare.

I sighed lightly and settled that the demon world was just _really_ weird and that I didn't need to know why a less-than-five-minute jump took twenty minutes. "Whatever. Can I get back to my house now?"

Hiei raised his eyebrows. "You're _asking_ to go back? Normally you don't even want to go."

"Meh. I miss my pets, and somehow I doubt that you can use your jagan on them to trick 'em into thinking that I was there the whole time." I looked around and realized that I was standing on the grounds of the High School, which was very close to my house. "…There's a rift-tear this near where I live?"

"They move around," Kurama explained. "It won't be there tomorrow."

I nodded, making sure no humans were around (Though Kurama informed me it was roughly 2:30 in the morning) to see three people randomly drop from the sky, then walked home. I didn't quite feel like running, and though I was enthusiastic toward seeing my pets, and halfway-enthusiastic at seeing my family, I still didn't want to go "home". I wanted to go to my _real_ home, back to Makai, and kick some demon ass or somehow find some place to sleep there rather than the human world. Just breathing human air made me feel nauseous, making me gather that my sense of smell was improving, still. Kurama was right in what he had told me in Makai—I was loosing more and more of my false humanity every day to my demon side, and I didn't mind a single bit.

I crept into the house quietly, heading straight for the stairs (which were directly in front of the front door.), but I hadn't counted on Mom coming to the top of the stairs like she was expecting me. I stopped and kept myself from gasping, glad Kurama and Hiei hadn't followed me in. "Uh…hey, Mom."

"Hey," she replied in her raspy 'I-just-woke-up-but-am-trying-to-pretend-I've-been-waiting' voice. "How was the party?" She turned and headed to the bathroom for a drink.

I watched her go, then sighed and muttered Hiei's name like a curse, and said, "Er…it was great," as I finished going up the stairs.

"How's Joanna?" I heard the 'shhh' of the tap turning on, and she returned with a glass of water.

"Kaze? She's good."

Mom probably would have said 'you mean 'well'', normally, just to annoy me, but she nodded and went back to her room with squinted, tired eyes.

I let out a breath I didn't realize I had been holding, then went to my room and flopped down onto the bed (Remember, this mattress was about a foot off the ground, if that, so it was like literally falling over.), careful not to squish my dog, Louie. He bounded over to me on the mattress and covered my face with slobbery kisses. "Okay, okay, I missed you too, dufus!" I tried to shove him off, to no avail since I didn't want to hurt him, then finally managed to flip him over on his back to scratch his stomach. It was the first time I really marveled at the fact that he so easily allowed me to see his most vulnerable part—his underbelly. I guess I realized how dangerous I could be in my demon form, then, and that he must have really trusted me to allow me to scratch him in my demon form. (That thought only confirmed that my mom had been doing the equivalent of sleepwalking, with little comprehension. She had failed to notice that I was thinner and that I was showered with various minor cuts and new scars, and that I was still half-limping.)

After vigorously giving Louie a petting as a reward for so patiently waiting for me to come back every week to see him, I unceremoniously fell sideways onto my pillows and enjoyed the scent of the newly-washed sheets. "Mmm…bed."

I heard Hiei snicker from outside my window, and I rolled onto my left side so I could face the tree. "'Party'?" I asked in a half-accusing tone.

"Simply because they're related to you, they begin to notice your absence despite the jagan after about a week, so I had to make them believe you were at your friend Kaze's. house"

"Meh. What about Adam?" Adam, in case anyone doesn't remember, is my human brother. "He's related to me—does he notice me being gone?"

"Usually. Sometimes he even notices swifter than your human parents, but that's rare, and only when his friends mention you."

"Friends? His friends talk about me?"

"Naturally. They've never met you." Hiei smirked at me, and again a single fang was revealed. That really did look awesome, and I half-wished I could have fangs all the time, rather than just in my full demon form. "Then again, you aren't around enough for anyone to meet you."

"Argh. Shut up." I glared at him for only a few seconds before realizing that I was tired again…already. "Is this 'cause I over-slept?" I asked, pointing at my mouth while talking and yawning at the same time.

Hiei gave a light shrug. "Probably."

I yawned again, right before the first yawn stopped, then rubbed my eyes. "Where's Kurama, anyway?"

"He left to find Yusuke and the idiot to tell them that you're alive."

I had completely forgotten, already, that Spike told Hiei I was dead. "Oh, right." I let my head, which had been propped up by my hand, fall limp on the pillow, and I made a strange, purring noise, opening my eyes immediately afterward. "…Uhm. Was that me?"

Hiei was snickering again. "Chichiro used to do the same thing. I never did understand how she managed that."

I shrugged once, then closed my eyes again and gave a single, surprisingly contented sigh before falling asleep.

* * *

**Authoress's Note:** Okay, the Dark Tournament chapters will be starting in either the next chapter or the one after that, so obviously they do end up going. The Dark Tournament in Yu-Yu-Hakusho lasted exactly a week, so I'm most likely going to do it in seven chapters, one for each day and possibly the last chapter being part of the sixth day and the seventh. Hopefully you all don't mind extra fighting. Nyahahah. –Cough- Also, you can find a link in my bio to what the outfit that Ketsue wears for most of the tournament looks like.

1—Technically I planned on ending the chapter here, but I decided because I was such a bastard with the last chapter and the cliff-hanger (Heheh, sorry about that. I love leaving cliff-hangers.) that I wouldn't leave you with such a short chapter.


	22. Arrival at the Dark Tournament

**Authoress's Note:** Okay, you'll notice that in the first few paragraphs, it mentions that this takes place in 2004. The fanfiction began in the beginning of summer, 2004, when Ketsue was thirteen, and it ends in February, 2005, before skipping a year to February, 2006 when she's fifteen for the final chapter. (Talk about planning ahead.) There is reasoning for the timing, etcetera, and I just wanted people to realize when this was supposed to be. Oh, yeah, and when she's 'writing' this, she's fifteen.

**Disclaimer:** Neither Hiei, nor Yu-Yu-Hakusho is mine.

**Claimer:** Chichiro and Ketsue are mine, Kaze is BritKit, Aria is FoxWitch. While not all the characters are mine, all writing, storylines and concepts in this fanfiction (Save any YYH references) are.

* * *

"You're _kidding_ me!" 

Hiei glared sideways at me. "Why would _I_ kid around?"

My mouth felt dry. "Y-you're really serious, then?" If this was some sort of joke, I would really have to hurt Hiei for it after making my hopes get so high.

"Of course I am." He leaned against the trunk of the tree, sighing a single time, then turned to me, swinging his legs over the branch. "Why is this so hard for you to believe?"

At that tone of voice, I knew for sure Hiei wasn't screwing around with me, and a huge grin swept across my face. "Really? I'm going to _Japan_!"

Hiei nodded, rolling his eyes in exasperation. The entire string of words, with me in disbelief, and Hiei assuring me he wasn't tricking me, had been had repeated several times for the past two minutes. After I had woken, he had told me that we had to go to Japan (I was far too enthused about the idea to realize how far away Japan was from Pittsford (My hometown in New York. I can't recall if I've mentioned where I lived yet.) and wonder how the hell we'd get there.) to board the ship that would take us to the tournament. It was a little too much for my hyperactive mind to bear. That was three of my previously unfathomable dreams for this year, 2004, that had been made: I had found out exactly what breed of non-human I was, I had met (Though he had obviously stayed and made it more than 'met') Hiei, and now I was going to Japan. I can't say I had really thought of it as a dream before, but the fact that I was going to be in the Dark Tournament was also pretty awesome. (You're probably saying, 'What the hell? Hiei never actually said you were going.' Before he had mentioned the details about getting there, he had obviously confirmed that he and Kurama had agreed that going to the Dark Tournament gave us all a better chance of living than waiting to be killed by many disgruntled demons who wanted us there.)

"We're leaving in an hour. If you feel the need to bring anything or say goodbye to your pets, do it now." Simply by the fact he had said 'goodbye' in such a finalizing way told me without him having to use words that the Dark Tournament could possibly be the last place I ever went, and I should go about it like it would be.

I looked over at my stuffed animals, a guilty childish habit I still had (And still do today, almost two years after.) and decided not to even consider bringing my favorite. I had survived without her in Makai, and I _really_ didn't want demons to know how young I still acted, even though I would probably be older than any of them there by my real age.

I went to my closet and grabbed a small, red and black bag, throwing it onto my bed. From the corner of my eye, as I went to the closet to get a few pairs of jeans, I caught sight of my laptop on my desk. As I chucked the pants sideways without looking to make sure they got in the bag, as I knew they would, I studied the flat, black computer. "Hey, Hiei?" I shifted my gaze to my dresser, where I opened the second-to-bottom drawer and pulled out a few shirts.

"What?"

"I've been thinking about starting another fan fiction."

"And?"

"I mean about this. Everything that's happened since I met you." I stuffed the shirts into the bag, marveling that they fit with the pants and still left room even though it was a small pack. "You have to admit, it would look like a pretty original idea. A fan fiction about another fan fiction turning out to be real." I looked over at Hiei as I sat on the bed, pulling my feet up and crossing my legs Indian-style. "And I knew I wasn't human…it won't be one of those fan fictions where it seems like the main character is human and then she finds out that everyone on the Yu-Yu-Hakusho team are really demons or humans with weird powers, and then the character finds out they're not human, either." It was misty outside, and just starting to get light out. From the pack on my bed, the excited feeling, and how early it was, I felt like I was going on vacation. It gave me a real sense of Déjà vu. "And, also, most fan fictions don't have Yu-Yu-Hakusho as being a show. It's set in the 'anime universe' and you guys aren't famous." At Hiei's skeptic look, I added, "Well, famous among anime freaks like myself."

Hiei shrugged. "Do what you like. Haven't you already started that, though?"

I blinked, then nodded. "Well, yeah, I did, but I only have one chapter, which didn't really happen…it was just to explain who I was and such." I paused, considering, then said, "Hey, how did you know that? I did it behind your back about two weeks after you first got here and finished it when I was on vacation in New Jersey."

Hiei's look made me feel pretty inferior, but I was used to that after being around him for so long. "Just because I don't always keep you under constant surveillance—" Which, at that point, he pretty much did. But at the time period we were discussing, we used to go days without talking to each other, and Hiei went off and fought the Escque alone almost every day. "—doesn't mean I don't know what you do. Your mind was very open, then, before you really understood how powerful my jagan was."

I squinted at him in a tired, half-glare, but then dropped it and decided I wasn't awake enough for that. I was excited and a bit hyper, yes, but I was still groggy. I felt no particular need to wake up fast like usual, as we weren't in any danger and I had an hour to get ready.

…An hour that was quickly slipping, as Hiei so graciously reminded me. "Would you hurry? I said we were leaving in an hour, but I meant 'we' including Kurama, Yusuke and Kuwabara as well. We have to meet them before we go."

Picking myself off the bed with a sigh, I muttered, "_Fine_," as if it were a huge favor to ask me to do so, and then I looked down at what I was wearing (I was still fully clothed in my battle-torn outfit from the day before) and remembered that I had lost my hoodie. The last hoodie I owned besides the huge ones that went to my knees and were only used when I was _really_ cold or wanted to wear something very comfortable. Neither of which suited what I wanted then, so I looked back at Hiei again. "You remember when I first started helping you fight the Escque and every time I transformed you had to do it and you always made my clothes change into what I wanted?" I earned a slight nod, which was barely even enough to be considered a nod. More like a tiny inclination of his head. "How did you do that? Now every time I make myself transform I just keep my normal clothes, 'cause I really don't mind 'em anymore, but it would be cool if I could wear something different."

Hiei shrugged. "Use your energy to manipulate what you're already wearing."

"…I can do that?" _Awesome_, I decided with a suppressed grin. _That is_ so _awesome!_ I closed my eyes and focused my energy to make myself transform, but I also focused on my clothing, just deciding to change the color of my shirt before I tried to do anything else, for fear of messing up.

"Obviously," Hiei confirmed, a bit late, and I realized that must have meant it worked. A huge grin flew to my face again—my shirt was no longer black, it was now a bright blue.

"Sweet!" I decided to mess around with my clothing after I finished packing and had more time. "Can I go take a shower?"

Hiei glared at me. "Your showers can take up to an hour and a half, more often forty-five minutes. We have a little less than a half an hour left."

"I'll be fast," I assured him, using my childish whine that repeated 'please' about fifteen times over even though I hadn't spoken it.

He rolled his eyes. "Fine. But you better be."

I nodded, grabbed a pair of clothes from my bag, and ran downstairs silently, my transformed demon form able of the littlest delicate movements to the longest strides without making a sound. As promised, my shower was only ten minutes or so, but I didn't alert Hiei to the fact and used the remaining time to screw around with my outfit.

Delving a bit too deep into what I wanted to appear as to the demons, I decided a mesh shirt was a definite; following that was a pair of jeans, as usual, but I switched the design around so the pockets were farther in the front and so that the fabric was a darker blue than usual, and then a red spaghetti-strap shirt, which made me change the black mesh to red. I could get my stud bracelets from upstairs, and possibly a necklace, but I was too preoccupied with how cool the red mesh looked. I had never owned any mesh shirt other than black, so the red fascinated me. (A/N--As said in the last chapter, there's a link in my bio under 'Tears of the Sun' to what the outfit looks like. Three cheers for odd fashion sense!)

Spending two more minutes in front of the mirror before realizing how human and 'girly-girl' I was acting, I quickly brushed my hair and teeth and ran back upstairs, strapping one of my three-row metal-stud bracelets on either wrist, tossing a spare, plain black armband in the bag in case I lost either of them (I never mentioned it before, but having bare wrists bothered me for some reason. At least one of my wrists had to have some sort of band or bracelet on it any time other than sleep and showers, or I'd do nothing short of freak out until I found something to suffice.).

Hiei, who seemingly hadn't moved from the tree, opened his cold, blood red eyes and regarded me impatiently as I finished stuffing a brush, toothbrush, two bandannas and the cell phone that I rarely used into the bag. "Are you ready yet?"

"Yup!" I grinned. "Oh, wait." I went to my closet and pulled out my kimono, which I hadn't worn in a while, and chucked it into the bag before zipping it shut with minor difficulty. "Okay, _now_ I'm ready."

Hiei stood, mumbling something resembling 'about time', and leapt off the branch onto the ground. I followed, swinging the bag over my shoulder and hitting the ground next to him, walking to the road. "So, how are we getting to Japan, exactly? And when does the boat leave?"

"The boat leaves in two hours," Hiei replied, and I stared at him, not allowing him to answer the first question.

"But…we're not in Japan yet."

"…Yes, I can see that."

I recovered my thoughts and restarted. "I mean, we can't get to Japan in two hours, can we?"

"We can using rift-tears," Hiei responded.

For some reason we were walking on the sidewalk, which wouldn't have seemed weird if it weren't for the fact that I had honestly never seen Hiei even walk on one before. He rarely _walked_ anywhere if we were traveling large distances anyway, and generally he used trees. "And you know where the specific rift-tears are?"

"Kurama told me last night that he found one that can get us to Cambodia, and another immediately in the area of the first that will take us to Japan."

"I take it the second one will bring us right to where we need to go?"

"About a fifteen minute walk from where we need to go, yes." Hiei stopped after we crossed the street, which was barren of all cars and made me wonder what time it was (As I had failed to look at the clock. I had assumed it was around five or six in the morning, though, from the faint light outside).

"Er…why did you stop?" I stood next to him, lowering my bag from my shoulder and setting it down beside me.

"Kurama and I are going before you and the two detectives. You're going with Yusuke."

"Say _what_! I don't want to go with Yusuke!"

Hiei sighed heavily. "I don't mean for the boat ride, just the trip to Japan, alright?"

My response was a reluctant 'fine' and a sigh. As my ear twitched lightly, I turned to the left to look down the road as I heard a…motorcycle?

"Is that…Yusuke?"

From Hiei's annoyed muttering, I assumed he didn't like motorcycles. "Unfortunately." Either that or he didn't like Yusuke. Either was plausible.

The bike came into view, with two people riding; the taller of them was in the back, which I assumed was Kuwabara. "Well, where's Kurama, then?" I asked, not seeing the spirit fox following them.

"I've been standing next to you for about forty seconds, now."

I jumped, giving a light squeak, and looked over at Kurama. "Hah…right." I grinned weakly at him, not mentioning how much that creeped me out, especially since I hadn't sensed him, and watched as the bike pulled to a stop in front of us. Kuwabara got off and handed me the bike helmet he removed from his head without even looking at me, instead strutting right over to stand in front of Hiei. "Hey, short stuff, why didn't you tell me you and fox-boy were going ahead of us? I really don't like bein' kept out of the loop!"

I ignored him and looked to Yusuke, who was leaning against the bike. "Uhh…can I put this somewhere?" I held up the helmet like it were a diseased corpse head, and Yusuke just told me to put it on the back of the bike, which I did. "Am I going to ride that?"

"Uh, yeah." Yusuke made it sound like it was obvious. He took off his helmet, which had muffled his voice before, and said incredulously, "How else would we get to wherever Kurama wants us to go?"

"…Riiight. I don't know, maybe walking? I do that often. Look into it, Yusuke."

Yusuke's glare was different from the general response that I got from sarcasm; it wasn't that I didn't expect a glare, it was the emotion that was in the glare that was unexpected.

He still didn't trust me. Disregarding my surprise as best I could, I turned to watch as Kuwabara threw a punch at Hiei, who simply flickered from view and reappeared behind the tall oaf. Sighing, I picked up the helmet I had just set down, and ignoring Yusuke's protests, I whipped the black object at Kuwabara, hitting his square on the back of the head. As I figured, after standing from his place with his face smashed into the grass, he threw accusations at Hiei.

"Hey, moron, that was me," I told him, rolling my eyes and snatching the helmet from his hands (Where he had been waving it around as he yelled), and chucking it backward at Yusuke, who I knew would catch it. I looked toward Hiei, who, though expressionless, seemed amused. "Do we have time for a fight? Just a short one?"

"I'm not sure who here you would want to fight, but we do," Kurama spoke up, sounding curious.

I held back a smirk. "Alright. Good." I pivoted and glared at Kuwabara. "You and me, human-boy. Let's go."

Kuwabara stared at me. "Wh-what?"

"You heard me," I growled back. I had figured earlier that morning that I should test his strength, since Hiei had informed me that the buffoon would be on our team, and what better time to do it than now, before our group separated and we boarded the boat with no possible way of getting a different fighter? Not that I thought we could find an alternate, now, but I still wanted to be proven wrong in my assumption that Kuwabara would probably be as much of a screw-up in real-life as he tended to be in the anime. "C'mon. Fight me."

A snicker from next to me caught me off guard. "You can't be serious," laughed Yusuke. "You want to fight _Kuwabara_?"

I glared sideways. "Well, I'm not going to fight you or Kurama. I know both of you could kick my ass. And I've already fought Hiei, and the only possible way I can beat him is sparring. If he actually tried to fight me he'd kick my ass as well, I never doubt that." I glanced over at Kurama as I spoke. "Kurama's a given. He can kick a lot of people's asses." My gaze shifted back to Yusuke. "And you could beat Hiei, so I won't even try you." Yusuke stared at me stupidly, then started to laugh. I twitched. "What the hell's so funny _now_?"

"Me? Beat Hiei? That's funny." He gave another chuckle then brushed his nose with his arm absently. "Let me guess—you got this information from the anime, right?"

I blinked. "Yeah. Why, did he beat you? I would have thought the world would be destroyed or completely taken over by demons already if he had won."

Yusuke was still chuckling. "No, I beat him the first time we fought, that's why this world's still in human 'control'."

"Then what did you mean?" I growled, impatient.

"He could easily beat me now. I mean, look at him."

I glanced over at the short fire demon from the corner of my eyes. "Yeah, he's strong," I replied, forcing down a grin, "but how'd you beat him once and not again, after you'd gotten stronger?"

"Because I didn't sit around and do nothing after he defeated me," Hiei replied for Yusuke. "It's no real contest now; Yusuke could pose a challenge, but he can't beat me."

I grinned. "Well, then, maybe I will try and fight you some time, Yusuke. But not right now." I pivoted my foot and turned, pointing at Kuwabara and addressing him instead. "Like I said before, the one I want to fight now is _you_, Kuwabara."

He leaned back lightly, then spoke in an indignant tone. "You know I don't fight girls!"

"Listen, you jerk," I spat back rabidly, "just because I'm female doesn't mean you can deny me a perfectly good fight."

Kuwabara crossed his arms and looked away from me, closing his eyes. "I don't fight girls. I don't care how good of fighters they are."

"Well, that came out much more insulting than I'm sure you meant it to be." I sprang up in the air, above Kuwabara as soon as I felt the tips of my feet graze the ground, and as I dove at him I shouted, "Now, fight me, human!"

He leapt back, his hands in his pockets, but he looked dazed despite his controlled posture. "Hey! Don't do that!" he cried, sounding almost disoriented.

My fist caused a huge crater in the pavement, and I felt a grin sliding across my lips as my fangs unsheathed themselves. I could feel myself reverting to my demon side even as I dove at him again, and I was actually aware of the fact that my eyes were shifting to gray and that my pupils were becoming slits. Other than that, my body didn't undergo any form of transformation.

I swung my arm around, my nails barely grazing his shirt as he dodged.

I could hear Yusuke laughing at Kuwabarra's vain attempts at keeping from having to fight me.

Then, as I swung my arm around again and slashed through the front of his shirt, I heard him shout, "Spirit sword!" and my ever-present almost-sadistic grin widened.

…Just as I heard a car coming down the road. Rolling my eyes, I dodged the slice of Kuwabara's bright yellow energy sword and leapt behind him, grabbing his shirt collar and dragging him to the other side of the road (As we were already three-fourths there) and pinned him against the tree with my foot as a dark blue car turned onto the street and drove past. Letting Kuwabara up after a minute of his struggling, making sure no other cars were coming, I reverted to my normal demon form, without the cat-slit eyes and retractable nails, and shrugged, putting my hands in my pockets (Which was odd for me, since these pants' pockets were farther in the front, as mentioned before) and walking back to the other three across the road. "Well, I guess we'll have to pick that up another time, if humans're starting to go to work." I stood next to Hiei and watched Kuwabara scramble to his feet, glaring and not lowering his sword. "Too bad. I kind of wanted to pummel you before we left."

Kuwabara twitched, starting to run at me, but then his eyes became a bit unfocused, an obvious sign that he was talking to someone telepathically, and then he grumbled to himself and let his energy sword fade. I glanced next to me to see Hiei's jagan glowing faintly from beneath his bandana, but like Kuwabara's weapon, that faded within seconds.

"Anyway," Yusuke finally spoke up, no longer laughing at his friend but still sounding a bit amused despite his attempts to mask it, "we should go, now, right?"

"Hn." My eyes were able to follow Hiei's movements as he disappeared from view, but I could tell that Yusuke and Kuwabara had seen little to nothing.

"Hey, where'd he go?" Kuwabara asked dumbly, then watched as Kurama shook his head and sprang into the tree nearest us and disappeared as well.

I felt immediately uncomfortable, no longer relaxed, and just so I had something to do, I walked over and picked up my bag from its place abandoned on the ground. "Are we all going to ride that?" I indicated the motorcycle parked at the curb.

"Duh," Yusuke responded.

I hadn't really expected a yes. "What? We can't all fit on that! There's no way that was built for three people."

Yusuke blinked. "Well, it's going to be used for three anyway. Let's go."

I twitched, then pointed accusingly at Kuwabara. "But…but, he's so tall! He's got to be five-six or something!"

"Five-five and three-quarters," Kuwabara corrected, sounding almost hurt by that extra quarter inch that I had assumed.

"My bad," I muttered back sarcastically.

"Yeah, whatever," Yusuke mumbled. "Can you deal with your insecurities now so we can go?"

I glared at him, but didn't let him see how much his distrust of me affected me, and I watched as Kuwabara got on the very back of the bike, about a person-length away from Yusuke. I sighed, knowing I was supposed to fill that space, but I really didn't want to ride a bike between two guys I didn't know. It was, however, true that Yusuke's bike would somehow hold three people—it was longer than I had given it credit for. Swinging my leg over the seat and slipping between them, I held up my bag. "Where's this supposed to—"

The engine roared to life, and Yusuke called over his shoulder with a louder-than-necessary, "What?"

He could hear me fine, I realized, but he was pretending the bike was too loud. I would gather in later weeks that Yusuke did that often if he felt like being a jerk or didn't want to answer a question. I leaned back as little as possible and squeezed the bag between Yusuke and I, and felt Kuwabara slip his arms around my waist. I twitched, about to glare at him, but he told me to do the same to 'Urameshi', which I did, just as the bike lurched a single time and shot forward.

…And I learned exactly how awesome motorcycles were. Within seconds I stopped caring that the people I was on the bike with were strangers, and that I had been mildly nervous about being on the bike because of how dangerous everyone said they were (Not that they were anywhere near as dangerous as the demons I fought almost every day, but I had a mutual distrust with Yusuke, but mine wasn't about his alliance with us, it was that I didn't trust him not to kill us all with his reckless driving), and enjoyed how fast it felt like we were going. I had gone faster when Hiei carried me, and possibly even when I ran places myself, but it seemed faster than it was. Kuwabara offered me a helmet, but I shook my head and told him to wear it, deciding that if I was already sandwiched between two guys, a helmet would not save or screw me in that position. Besides, having my hair free was much more fun (And it also whipped Kuwabara in the face. Always a perk.).

The ride took about forty-five minutes, which seemed all-too-short to me, and I was almost disappointed to feel my feet on solid ground again.

I found myself to be pretty stiff when I got off the bike, and I bent backward, hearing the vertebrae in my back snap. I looked up and saw a rift-tear hovering above the ground, only about six feet up, which was unusually low. "That the one?" I pointed at it, then examined our surroundings and found that we were in the middle of the woods somewhere.

"Well, _yeah_. Do you see any other random rectangular doorways of doom?" Yusuke asked, stepping off his bike and leaping into the air, balancing on the non-existent edge between worlds (Which I don't think should have been possible, seeing as how both sides were just floating in the air and there really wasn't anything solid to balance on. I decided to ignore that for the sake of my sanity.) "You comin', Kuwabara?" Without waiting for an answer, Yusuke gave a mini-salute with a grin, and let himself fall forward into the other world.

"Show off," I mumbled, then turned to Kuwabara, who was just getting off the bike. _He's slow,_ I thought with mild annoyance. "Are we just going to leave his bike here, in the middle of no where?"

"If Urameshi didn't mention it, I guess so." Kuwabara jumped up and fell through to the other side of the rift-tear without further comment, and then I sprang up and followed.

…Falling. Again. The concept was getting old, and I no longer felt much fear at the feeling; I actually expected it. We were about a hundred feet off the ground, which was littered with trees, but it was high enough to give me a great view of the ocean, which was far down an incredibly steep hillside. It appeared we were on something like a mini-mountain (Or would be, once we actually hit land.).

I landed neatly on the ground, watching Kuwabara (Who had landed not-so-neatly seconds before me.) stumble to his feet, complaining in a mutter about 'damn natural demon balance', which I assume was directed toward me, but my own focus was on where the others were. Yusuke, I could see, was already walking away, down the steep hillside, but Kurama and Hiei were no where to be seen. _I still don't see why we had to separate_, I thought grudgingly, for some reason feeling a bit like Botan at complaining about that, and went after Yusuke. Kuwabara walked next to me in silence, but though he was a bit rigid, I couldn't sense the same distrust I could from Yusuke. Kuwabara either did trust me, or wanted to badly. Yusuke didn't even seem to _want_ to trust me. He just…didn't. I hadn't taken the spirit detective as someone who would think so much into other peoples' credibility , with how easily he had trusted Kurama and Hiei after they had stolen from King Yama's vault.

It seemed that the rift-tear to Cambodia had switched and aligned itself with Japan, as there was no second rift-tear to go to; the other two must have assumed the same, for they didn't mention it.

"So, Kuwabara, do you know where Hiei and Kurama are meeting us?"

Kuwabara looked over at me from the corner of his eyes, as if he were uncomfortable being around me, but said in a level, serious (More serious than I was used to.) tone, "No. Urameshi never tells me anything, and the half-pin—er, I mean, Hiei definitely wouldn't have told me."

I sighed lightly. "Thanks anyway," I mumbled, for some reason feeling like I should act like I did when I talked to my human father's business partners. Always courteous, however stiff it happened to be.

"So...uh…" I twitched, able to tell just by his tone what he was going so say.

"No," I spat flatly, "Hiei and I are not dating or 'together'." Kuwabara raised his hand as if he was about to say something else, and I growled roughly, "And, no, we are not fuck-buddies, either. Leave it alone." Kuwabara's pace slowed a bit, as if he were surprised with how blunt I was about it, and how easily I had read into what he would ask, but then I sensed him give the slightest shrug from behind me and he began walking at the normal speed again.

I sensed Hiei as soon as we got to the edge of the steep hill, and for that I was glad. Yusuke had fallen into step with us and kept giving me suspicious glares. He was the oddest person to try and figure out; when I met him, he had _expected_ malice from me, but didn't seem against it, and then at Nirvana's lair he had been subtly suspicious but nice to me, but as the day here went by, he was becoming more and more openly distrusting of me.

After a ten minute walk, Hiei and Kurama came into view at the base of the hill, and I ran to meet them, followed by Yusuke and Kuwabara, who mimicked my run. I didn't listen as Kurama pointed to where the boat was and explained the preliminary fights, which I would obviously learn about later (though it was said mostly for my benefit, since the other three Kurama was talking to had already been to the tournament before.). Yusuke was only listening halfway, as well, but he had a real reason beside boredom—more time to glare 'subtly' at me.

After Kurama finished explaining, he turned and walked alongside Hiei toward a dock, which I could see about a half-mile away. "Hey, guys?" I called, and they both stopped. Yusuke and Kuwabara hadn't moved, as if I had to go first so they could follow me. I was starting to feel like a convicted criminal under surveillance. I walked to stand next to Hiei, for once more to get away from the humans than to really be next to him. "What's our team going to be called? You guys used Team Urameshi last time, right? What're we going to use this time around?"

Kurama only considered it for a moment, then said, "Well, you're the one they requested for the tournament. Perhaps it should be named after you."

I stared at him. "Are you kidding me? That doesn't mean I'm team captain or anything! You're all stronger than me!" I paused, looking sideways at Kuwabara, giving him a swift up-and-down look. "Well…'cept maybe you. But we weren't going to name it 'Team Kuwabara', anyway." I heard Hiei chuckle lightly from next to me, and then I faced him and Kurama again. "Really, though, y'can't name a team after me. Even if you did, what would it be called? Team Ketsue? That sounds lame. And in case you were unaware, I don't have a last name if you're going by Ketsue."

"Why not just use Ketsueki, then?" Kurama suggested.

"No, that would—" I stopped, considering. "Hmm…'Team Blood.' I kind of like that."

Hiei smirked. "Seems you're becoming more and more demonic each day."

I twitched, glaring at him. "Oh, shut up, you."

"Aww, man," Yusuke whined from next to Kuwabara, who was still glaring indignantly at me for my comment about his strength. "I'm so used to being the person the team is named after. This is gonna suck."

It was Hiei's turn for saying 'shut up', and Yusuke obeyed (grudgingly and muttering afterward.).

"Where is this tournament, anyway?" I asked.

"Hanging Neck Island," Kurama answered.

"Hey, that's the island from the anime." I knew Yusuke was rolling his eyes at the mention of the anime, but I ignored him. "It's at the same place?"

"It's on the same island every year," Kurama responded, acting as though it was strange that I didn't know that despite the fact I knew nothing about the Dark Tournament.

"But what about the arena getting blown up?" Everyone just looked at me like I was nuts. "Uhm…you know, after Sakyo lost the bet with his life and blew it up."

Hiei gave me his you 'You're the most incompetent person alive' look. "What, do you think that they'd be unable to rebuild it?"

"…Yeah, this is me lookin' stupid."

I heard Hiei lightly mutter, 'Like that's anything new' as he turned and walked away, and I shouted, "What was that?" after him, running to catch up with the fire demon as the others followed.

The dock was relatively clear, with only a few demons other than us around. By the looks of twisted delight on their faces when they saw us (especially when looking at me, unfortunately), they already knew who we were. The rest of my team ignored them, however (Kuwabara being the only one other than me having issue with that), and we all walked onto the ramp and to the ship.

The ship wasn't anything special, really; it looked more human-made than I thought, but there were blood stains on the floor that had obviously been lazily washed, and the entire place reeked of blood like in Z'chor, the realm Spike and the other shadowcats had been in before they took me to their other world.

"I can see their taste has improved," Yusuke said in a sarcastically enthusiastic voice. "I mean, there's no heads on spikes, but that blood splatter on the wall over there is a nice touch."

I examined the demons around us, which all were glancing at us every once and a while, no doubt having made the connection that we were the guest team.

I walked over to the rail on the back of the ship, which was fairly clear of demons, and I leaned over the side and looked out at the water.

"Are you nervous?"

I looked up to see Hiei standing perfectly balanced on the top rail, facing the water like I was. "A little bit." I grinned at him. "But this is way too good of an opportunity to miss. So many fights. It'll be awesome." I didn't admit it, but I really was pretty nervous. There was no telling what sorts of danger waited on Hanging Neck Island. Not that I worried about me very much, though I won't play cool and say I didn't worry for myself at all, because I did, but I mainly thought about Hiei and the possibility of him getting injured. Of course. Spike was right—I did have a one-track mind. I did think a minor amount about the others, Kurama ranking above Yusuke and Kuwabara in my concern, but it was, as just said, only minor. I sat down against the rail when I heard the boat start up, dreading, as I hated boats. I pulled my knees to my chest and rested my head on my crossed arms, propped up by my knees, and sighed. "How long is the tournament, anyway?"

"A full week, though sometimes adding a day or two for the first and last day while they prepare everything."

"Where will we sleep?"

"The hotel on the island."

I blinked, my eyes open even though my head was down. "There's a hotel on the island?"

I felt Hiei's eyes on me, though only briefly. "I thought you would know that from the anime."

"I told you, I haven't seen all of it. I didn't know there was a hotel." I had seen an episode then where the hotel was shown, but I hadn't really translated that into a hotel, really. More like just 'building'. The word 'hotel' brought to mind humans, and at that point I wasn't aware that the Dark Tournament was organized by humans. I had it in my mind that the committee was made of demons, for some reason.

"Hn."

I sensed a group of three demons walk by, but they didn't slow or stop, so I didn't look up. "Kurama said something about a preliminary battle, didn't he? When does that start?"

"Most likely soon. Within the hour."

"Goody." I wasn't even sure I was being sarcastic.

* * *

I was shaken awake by Kurama; apparently I had been much more comfortable on the boat than I'd thought and had dozed off. Looking up sleepily at him, I said, "So, uh, how goes with those preliminaries?" 

"They're about to start."

"Oh, good." I smiled groggily, standing. "Who's fighting, again?"

Kurama grinned at me, seeming amused. "You weren't paying attention, were you?"

"Huh? When?"

"When I explained the preliminaries."

"Uh…no. Sorry. Not really." I rubbed at my eyes and yawned once. "Who's fighting, though? You never answered."

"Whoever wants to."

I jumped lightly when Hiei spoke from behind me, and I turned to find him balancing on the rails still, acting as though he were standing on flat ground. "Oh."

"They tell us to send out our strongest fighter, but seeing as how we can defeat anyone on this ship whether it is our strongest or not, there's no need to comply to their requests in exact."

"So…" I grinned, knowing my eyes had lit up. "…does that mean I can fight?"

Kurama and Hiei exchanged smirks of suppressed amusement (though Kurama's was more of an actual smile than a smirk), and Kurama nodded. "Yes, but be careful."

I looked suspiciously at both of them, wondering what the glance they shared was about, and for some reason feeling childish because of it. "Okay." I gave a final glare before turning to watch as a tall, black-haired, black-bearded man (Not the same captain from the anime, but something like a taller, buffer version of him without a peg leg) showed on the upper level of the boat. He looked young, but when he spoke he sounded anything but young. "Alright, vermin," he called out in a rough voice, "pay attention. We 'ave a good few 'ours before the boat docks on 'angin' Neck, so the preliminary battles'll be fought 'ere."

_We know that,_ I thought, bored, and watched as the demons who hadn't been informed muttered among themselves.

Beneath us, the ship made a disconcerting rumbling noise, and the ground trembled. "I hate ships," I mumbled to myself, and then a few groups of the demons in front of us scrambled off of the section they were standing down as the ship split down the middle in a single square, the floor fanning out like huge wings, making a hissing noise, and then a large fighting ring rose from within the ship, sporting stairs to get to the top.

"Send out your strongest fighter, or whoever you think won't let you all get killed, and send 'em to the ring. Only the winnin' team is eligible for continuin' to the island."

I watched as various demons, all at least twice my height, though some even taller, went toward the 'arena', and then stuffed my hands in my pockets and followed. Kicking off the railing halfway up the stairs, I landed on the outer edge of the ring.

Although most demons seemed to recognize me, of the eleven facing me, about five seemed utterly confused by my presence. "You human?" an oafish gray one asked, looking perplexed.

I rolled my eyes and sighed, getting into a stance I hadn't used in a while, because it was completely offensive and not very defensive. I could already tell that Hiei was more right than I had originally thought—these demons were not only easy to defeat, they were sluggish and stupid. They had size, and that was all. "No, you fool, I'm not a human. If you want to kill a couple of humans, go for them." I indicated Kuwabara and Yusuke with my thumb. "But me, I'm all demon, I assure you." I didn't even summon a weapon. My fists alone would be enough to defeat these morons.

"Start whenever you like," the captain called down in a bored tone, and a few demons glanced at each other and seemed to decide without words that they would target me first. Fine with me. I had assumed as much anyway.

The gray demon who had spoken before made an arm motion that I assumed meant for the demons to follow him, and they all rushed at me.

_Why don't you just sit in a line and wait for me to kill you one-by-one?_ I thought. _It'd be much more merciful that way._

Within seconds, I realized that fighting with my fists would be tedious and leave room for error, so I summoned a hell-flame sword with my right hand and a normal sword with my left, slashing at the demons in front of me rapidly. I could barely follow my _own_ movements. The four demons who had come along with the gray demon lay in pieces at his feet before I even withdrew my sword from his body, and with a single last slash of my hell-flame sword, I severed his head. The remaining six demons watched with wide eyes (Though I noticed some had three or more eyes that could widen. It was quite an odd sight, as I had never seen anyone with three eyes other than Hiei.), and then one of them gave a shout in a language I didn't recognize, and the others came at me as well. Poor fools. Demons never learned.

Disappointed that the fight had ended so quickly, I sprang down after slaughtering the remaining six with a single swish of my hell-flame sword and walked over to rejoin my team. "Well that was dull," I mumbled, leaning against the railing again and sitting with a sigh. "How long did he say this boat ride would be?"

* * *

We were informed when we arrived at Hanging Neck Island that because we were the guest team, we didn't have to go to the opening ceremonies that described what the final round was like, and what the tournament prizes were. I guess we were supposed to die before the finals came around. 

Picking up my bag, I followed Hiei and Kurama (Yusuke and Kuwabara, as usual, following me.) off the ship. They turned to the left at the end of the dock rather than the right like the captain and all of the demons from the teams that hadn't made it (They hadn't bothered us about winning, much to my surprise, and I guess they were just glad the were alive and went to watch the tournament instead.). "You said we're going to a hotel?"

Hiei pointed at a large building ahead of us, and I could faintly make out letters on the front, but at this distance I couldn't read them.

"Hotel Kubikukuri," Yusuke mumbled from next to me. "I was kind of hoping I'd never have to see that place again."

As we neared, I realized that the building did indeed say 'Hotel Kubikukuri', but surprisingly it was in English letters rather than in Japanese or whatever demon looked like.

There were revolving doors to get into the hotel, and we went in two groups, though Kuwabara _somehow_ got his pant leg stuck and he and Yusuke had to wait, trapped, while Kurama went out through the normal side door to get it undone. Hiei didn't wait, or even slow down save for a single glance backward, and I followed him to the stairs (I hate elevators. There was no way anyone was dragging me on one.). "What floor are we on?"

"The third," Hiei replied, holding up a room key and dropping it into my hand.

I blinked at it. "Wait…we just got here. How did you get this?"

"I'm a felon and an ex-thief," Hiei muttered at me, his form flickering and reappearing on the stairwell. "It wasn't that hard to take." He disappeared from my view in a small black blur, and I shrugged and followed.

After unlocking the room, I barely paid attention as Hiei immediately went to sit on the window sill. It was _huge_. I had never seen such a huge hotel room in my life, and it was _nice_. There were two leather couches that were positioned around a dark, wooden table, and above the coffee table was a small, crystal chandelier. The floor that connected to the hallway went about fifteen feet into the room, before there were two stairs that brought the rest of the huge room up about two or three feet higher. On the higher section, three beds were lined up, which I assumed meant that there was either a second room or two of us would sleep on the couches. "…Wow." I examined the room only a moment more before deciding the black couches looked incredibly comfortable, and I catapulted myself onto the nearest one and grinned, unable to keep myself from giggling like a child. "This is _great_! I could get used to it here." I snuggled the pillow at the end of the couch, dropping my bag (which I had been holding on to) on the floor.

"Don't get too used to it," I heard Hiei mutter, just as Kuwabara ran in the door.

"Hey, have you guys seen the—_HEY!_" He had spotted the key that I was dangling from my fingers casually, knowing that was what he meant. "How'd you get that?"

"While you were asking if we had seen the key," I said, spinning the key ring around my finger and whipping it at Kuwabara, who barely caught it, "did it ever occur to you that you just ran in the room that _needed_ the key to be opened?"

Yusuke walked by, grabbing the collar of Kuwabara's white shirt and yanking the taller man into the hallway. As he had been coming toward the room, I could hear him muttering incoherently, but now his words were clearer. "And we don't _need_ that key 'cause we have our _own_ room, Kuwa_baka_. So let's _go_ to _our_ room and leave the demons alone so they don't try to _kill_ us." As Kuwabara's dragging feet went out of sight of the door, I heard the room next door click open, Yusuke mumbled, "Well, so they don't try and kill us…again."

Kurama had apparently been watching from in the hallway, as his eyes were on Yusuke, looking a bit perturbed, as he walked in. He dropped two bags, which I hadn't seen him bring and wondered where exactly he had stashed them, just inside the door, then closed it. He walked over to the other couch, which was vacant, and sat down with a muffled sigh.

There was a knock on the door, and I half expected Kurama to complain about not wanting to stand (as he didn't seem very enthused at the sound of the knocking), but a thorny vine sprouted spontaneously, growing from his sleeve, and without him even moving, the vine wrapped around the door knob, twisting and pulling, revealing a well-dressed, mildly-nervous seeming room serviceman.

"Good evening, gentlemen and lady," he said, bowing, and pushed a cart in, setting three cups and a silver platter to hold them on the table. "Compliments of the hotel," he told us, and left immediately afterward. I heard him go into Yusuke and Kuwabara's room next door over.

"Huh. Weird. He didn't ask for a tip."

Kurama reached over and picked up the cup, which was filled with a dark, steaming liquid that looked like coffee but smelled funny. It smelled almost like herbal tea, but it had a strong coffee smell nonetheless. _Heh_, I thought. _Herbal coffee._ "Most of the participants of the Dark Tournament aren't made of money," the fox said, taking a small sip of the drink without concern.

"He'll save his tip-begging for the human gamblers," Hiei said, and I jumped lightly.

I hadn't seen Hiei move from his spot next to the window, but he was sitting next to Kurama now, holding the other cup. "Ah. Okay." I smiled lightly, then sat up and picked up the last cup, sniffing it experimentally. "What is this?" I realized there was the tiniest hint of an alcohol scent in it.

"Ah, good ol' fashion demon coffee!" Yusuke barged in as he said it, holding his own cup. Kuwabara followed, though he wasn't carrying a drink. "And it has booze, too! I can't say I didn't miss this, at least, about this stupid island."

Hiei glared at Yusuke as the spirit detective flopped down on the couch next to me. "You were asleep half of the last tournament," the fire demon growled. "I wasn't aware you had even had this."

"I didn't," Yusuke replied with a grin, sipping it once, then swigging the rest in a single gulp as if he had become impatient with it. "I just watched what happened after Keiko had a few too many. She didn't know they had alcohol in 'em." He snickered. "Man, that was fun."

I scooted away from Yusuke none-too-subtly and set my cup back on the table without even trying it.

The detective didn't notice my movements, though, as he was already starting to stand and walk over to the window. As he got there, he whistled. "Damn, there is a nice view."

Had Yusuke not been standing over there, I would have submitted to curiosity and went over to look, but instead I just remained where I was as Kuwabara slipped silently onto the couch so that he didn't alert his friend to the fact he had stolen his spot.

"So what do we do now? Wait?" I asked, looking over at Hiei and Kurama and ignoring to two humans (Though Yusuke technically wasn't a human, I decided to classify him as one anyway.) in the room entirely.

"I guess so," Kurama replied, shrugging and taking another sip from his cup before placing it back on the dark coffee table. His emerald eyes followed Hiei as the fire demon headed toward the door. "Going somewhere, Hiei?"

"Hn. Come with me, Ketsue."

I blinked, but shrugged and stood, jogging over to the door and following him, ignoring the odd looks I knew I was getting from Yusuke and Kuwabara, ever persistent in thinking that Hiei and I were a couple. "Uh, where are you taking me?"

"Before the tournament starts, I need to do something to you," he responded monotonously, and I shoved back the perverted thoughts I knew could spawn from that and tried to keep focus.

After a few moments silence, and after we had left the hotel and began to walk toward the direction I figured the ocean was, I said, "Uhm, and? That is?"

"Just wait."

I sighed dramatically, but after only a short while I began to like the walk. There were a few demons here and there, which were not at the opening ceremonies, but I enjoyed the looks they gave me, almost fearing, though I much better liked it when they had a determined glance, meaning they would or wanted to fight me in the near future. The scenery was actually fairly pretty, and I caught a glimpse of the ocean when Hiei veered left and led me toward the woods. The woods, however, were made of young trees that obviously were replacing old ones that had been cut down, blown up or incinerated in past years because of the tournament; I didn't mind young trees, as tree children were not like human children and could be wise at young ages, but they didn't hold my interest. "As fun as this nature hike is," I said finally, "I really am curious as to where you're taking me."

Hiei finally stopped when the trees cleared, opening to a large, flat field. "Hold out your arms," he instructed.

I raised an eyebrow at him, but did as I was told and lined my hands up in fists in front of me. He reached out his own right arm and brought his middle and index finger together, and with a fluid movement he made an arc around one of my hands. "Non omnia moriar—" His hands moved to my other wrist, and I could feel a huge weight starting to gather at the first. "—perfer et obdura dolor hic tibi proderit olim!" He finished with a swish of his fingers, and just as I looked down, my wrists snapped together, and I felt like I was being dragged downward.

"HEY!" I cried indignantly, pulling myself up and hoping my back wouldn't break. "What the _hell_ did you just do to me!"

"You're familiar with what happened in Yusuke's past, if a bit skewed thanks to the anime you watch," Hiei growled at me, crouching and wrapping red energy around my ankles as well, which proceeded to yank toward each other and smash together, almost causing me to fall over. "You should recognize spirit cuffs when you see them."

I stared at the strange contraptions wrapped around my limbs, blinking a single time before scowling and glaring back at Hiei. "You…you're kidding me, right?" I felt my left eye twitch lightly. "You want me to battle demons wearing _these_ things?"

"Focus your power and channel it through your body," he instructed, ignoring my annoyance at him, "and then try to move."

My glare never moved from him, but I did as I was told and then slowly pulled my wrists apart, then my ankles. "And let me guess—I have to do this all the time?"

"Every day," Hiei confirmed with a nod, then smirked. "I think I'll rather enjoy this."

I growled. "And I think I'm going to ignore that and not ask what you meant."

He smirked at me. "When you're ready, and trust me, that won't be for a while, you only have to say 'Avitus' to release yourself from them."

"Er…Avi-what?"

"Avitus," he repeated flatly. "And don't say it now, dumb-ass."

I growled lightly at him again, but he began to walk away. "Hey! Where are you going?"

"To train. And if you want to survive, I suggest you do the same. Be sure to at least _try_ and mask your energy, though. Since you have to be at full power constantly now, you're a walking target for our opponents before the battles."

"Oh, _greeeat_," I drawled, rolling my eyes, then increased my energy more, taking a step and finding it to be difficult still. "Hey, Hiei!" I called to his retreating form. "Just how much energy do you expect me to waste on this?"

"If you plan on moving, as much as necessary," he called back. "Don't be lazy."

I clenched my hands tightly into fists and glared after him, then let my energy flare up double, and I found it easier to walk; however, any time I lost concentration my feet began to slide inward toward each other, and my metal stud bracelets chinked against one another.

I gritted my teeth as I made my way toward the ocean, to a cliff I had seen about a mile from the hotel. "Hiei," I muttered under my breath, shaking my head, "I am so going to kill you for this."

* * *

The island was quiet. Far off, I could hear dull voices that sounded like they were speaking over an intercom, but they were too soft to be important, and other than that and the gentle crashing of the waves, it was silent. 

I watched as the ocean lazily lapped around the rocks below me, my left leg swinging over the side of the cliff and my right positioned in a 'v' with my foot against my knee. The sun was setting, and unlike in the parts of the human world I had been, the sunset wasn't made of vibrant, seemingly unnatural colors, just a faint red glow; the light didn't die out until the sun dipped behind the horizon. I had heard somewhere, I think in my eighth grade science class, that pollution was the cause of sunsets…something about chemicals. Whatever it was, I definitely preferred the less colorful sunset to the ones I was used to. It was prettier, more natural.

With a small sigh, I lifted my right arm, pulling the mesh back to rest at my elbow, and I opened my clenched fist, studying the bandage. I had a strong urge to take the bandage off, just to see if my arm was healing in appearance as well as it had been progressing in mobility, but I figured it would be safer to wait until a fight when I needed to use my right arm.

I had sensed Hiei return to the hotel about an hour ago, which was maybe four hours after I had received the spirit cuffs. Looking down a single last time at the gentle spray against the cliff, I stood and headed back as well.

* * *

"Up." A foot nudged my ribs. I pressed myself against the back of the couch and gave a muffled noise of protest, which translated to a 'no'. "C'mon, Chichiro. Get up." Simply so I could continue to pretend I was mostly asleep, even though I was near fully conscious already, I didn't smack Yusuke for calling me Chichiro and correct him. The foot dug into my ribs again, a bit lower and into my stomach this time. I held back a snicker as he poked a halfway-ticklish spot, and I just reached over and grabbed the pillow that I had been resting my arm (rather than my head. I found it was more comfortable to lay flat on the couch instead of having my head propped up.) and stuffed it over my face, somehow managing to retreat farther into the soft leather of the back of the couch. Yusuke groaned. "Damn it, why did you have to sleep on the couch? If you had slept on the bed like a normal person, I could have shoved you off it. But _noo_. You had to choose the _couch_, with a _back_, so I'd have to drag you. I'm too lazy for that in the morning!" I offered him no response, not even a slight movement. "Gah! Come _on_!" 

"You're pitiful," came Hiei's voice from what sounded like the doorway. His voice was farther away, and what sounded like in the hallway, when he continued. "She doesn't resist waking up for me."

"Then you come and get her up, damn it!" Yusuke shouted back, but he and I both knew Hiei, with his speed, was probably already downstairs. The detective growled to himself, muttering something about how Kurama had dumped the job of getting me up on him, and then he tried again. "Uhh…there's an awesome breakfast buffet downstairs." No answer. "Aaand there's croissants and coffee here in the room already," he offered. I still afforded him no reply. I was thoroughly enjoying myself annoying him. "…Come _on_! What does it take you get you up?"

I feigned sleep, rolling over and facing the back of the couch. I couldn't help a grin when I heard Yusuke make a loud noise of frustration.

Suddenly he wrapped his arms around my waist, wrenching me free of the couch, and threw me over his shoulder, carrying me to the bathroom. When I hit the hard floor of the shower, I resisted calling Yusuke a jerk and just groaned, curling into a ball, determined to at least _act_ like I was still sleeping.

I was expecting extremely cold or scalding water to start pouring on me…What I did not expect was that Kuwabara would be dropped onto me none-too-gently, still sleeping, which was exactly what happened.

I was all for continuing to annoy Yusuke, but that was too far. Struggling from beneath the orange-haired human, I growled in a feral way, pointing at Yusuke. "_You!_" I shouted in a demonic half-snarl, and Yusuke grinned from nervousness, squeaking, "Oh, shit!" and running out of the bathroom and into the hallway. I shot after him.

"Good morning, Ketsue," Kurama said as I ran past.

"Oh, morning, Kurama," I said, pulling up from my jog.

"What are you doing, if I'm allowed to ask?"

"I'm just going to decapitate Yusuke then have some breakfast."

"Ah. Have fun."

"Will do." I turned and continued after the spirit detective, running down the stairs and narrowly avoiding murdering a group of demons on the stairwell.

I lost his energy signal when I got to the bottom of the stairs, and I sighed, deciding he wasn't worth it to waste my energy on, and I followed the sign in the hall and walked to the hotel restaurant, grabbing a croissant and a orange juice bottle; I wondered if someone was paying for our stay at the hotel or if the hotel was paying for us special since we were the guest team. With a tiny shrug, I went outside.

There were demons everywhere. _Everywhere._ I had never seen so many types of demons in my life, most of which I had never even fathomed possible (Such as what resembled a Pidgey from Pokémon, and what looked like a giant slug.), let alone seen in person. Most of them were standing in line, though the line stretched as far as I was able to see over the demons; I assumed it was for the arena.

"Is it safe?"

"Long as you never drop Kuwabara on me again," I replied to Yusuke's sheepish question. "We do get in a different way than the demons in the stands, right? 'Cause I don't think we could very easily get to the front of this line and not miss the fights."

"Yeah, we get in somewhere else."

I turned to look at him; he seemed to be having a good day, or something, because he didn't seem too distrusting of me. Dropping my eyes and walking past him, I gave a light, "Hn," and went back into the hotel.

After I had gotten upstairs and finished my croissant and orange juice (And realizing that Kuwabara was still in the shower…and still asleep.), I sat on the couch. I was less enthused at fighting than I thought I would be, and I almost felt that familiar, old sense of foreboding come back. Before I would let it make a reappearance, however, I went to my bag, unzipping it and retrieving my kimono. I slid it on, deciding it would look awesome (The sleeves were just past my elbows and not quite to my wrists) with the red mesh, and then I used my energy to shorten the back and the front so that it was only together just above my navel with a chain and so that the back draped behind my legs, almost like Spike's outfit. I shortened the sleeves, as well, so they were just above my elbows. Deciding spontaneously that I wanted to wear a bandanna, I pulled out the red ribbon-like fabric I had brought and tied it around my forehead, pulling my hair gently to cover it everywhere but on my brow.

I walked into the bathroom, glancing at my reflection once in the mirror before turning to Kuwabara, who was snoring and laying in a very uncomfortable-looking, unorthodox pose in the shower. I shook my head lightly, then grabbed his left ankle, yanking once and pulling him from where he had been propped against the wall, making his body slide down the tub and smack his head onto the bottom of it. Leaving sight-range of the shower quickly, I heard him swear once, and then I slipped out the door, confident he'd get up.

Hiei met me in the hallway before I went down the stairs. "Nice job," he muttered, not entirely sarcastically. "I've been trying to think of a way to get him up without killing him for some time, now."

I smiled lightly, then said, "So, where do we go? And when are we fighting?"

"We're fighting first, as the guest teams always do, and as to where it is, just follow me."

Obeying, I ran after Hiei, past the line of demons, and a huge arena came into view. It was much bigger than the anime or my perception of the anime had given credit for.

From within the stadium, I could sense a huge amount of demon energy, though most of it didn't come from the stands. Apparently either the team we were facing was incredibly strong, or all the other teams who would fight after us had come to watch. Surprisingly, when I followed Hiei down a hallway and into the arena center ring, Kurama and Yusuke were already waiting. Kuwabara came about a minute after, panting.

"Hello, demons and demonesses, my name is Suurii Gomeii, and I'll be your in-the-ring host this year at the most anticipated tournament in all of the demon and human realm alike, the _Dark Tournament_!"

There was a huge roar from the stands in response to the referee's announcement. I looked up to find a black-haired (though her bangs were as red as Kurama's hair) demoness with a black fox tail and point-tipped ears in the center of the ring, holding a microphone in one hand and waving the other arm in the air.

"And I'm Koto, your ever-present out-of-the-ring commentator. Welcome to the Dark Tournament, everybody!" I turned to see my favorite cat-fox mix demoness from the anime, sitting near a microphone, leaning backward with her feet propped up on the table and holding the microphone lazily in one hand. I had always like Koto, though to be honest I wasn't sure why. She was just a fun character, I guess; it was awesome to see the real thing, just like with all of the other Yu-Yu-Hakusho 'characters' I had met (though in this case it was just seeing, not meeting.). She was wearing a tight black zip-down hoodie, which was pulled down halfway to reveal a white shirt, and a dark blue skirt and dark tights. Not the attire I recalled her ever wearing, but she was Koto all the same. "You all know the deal by now—raincoats are available for those in the first row, and before we begin each round, you should locate the nearest emergency exit." Koto pointed her arm upward to each of the exits, then looked to the demoness in the ring. "Take it away, Suurii."

"Alright! Welcome again, everybody, to the first round of the Dark Tournament. On my right is this year's guest team, Team Ketsueki!" As expected, we didn't receive a positive response, but it wasn't entirely the opposite, either; the demons seemed glad we were here, even if it was just to see us get killed. I did wonder, though, who had set up the team name; I figured someone had done it while I was at the cliff or asleep. "And on my left, Team Kaisunkei!"

I looked over to see a group of non-humans facing us across the center ring; the most noticeable of the group was a huge, probably nine-foot man, with a large black beard, a bowler hat, and intense eyes. On his left shoulder, a young blonde girl with ponytails was perched, and the only think out of the ordinary in her girly frill was the gasmask that concealed her face. Standing behind and next to them were three demons, none of which seemed to jump out with any particularly interesting features, though one of them was dressed a bit like a magician, which seemed almost amusing to me.

"By the authority of the Tournament committee, let the first round begin!"

* * *

**Authoress's Note:** I'm on my last leg writing this; I haven't gotten (real) sleep in a while. Nyah. -Starts to doze off- Anyway, the opponents on the Kaisunkei team are all actual characters I saw in the background; I decided their character designs, especially Rangarok and Louise (The two above mentioned—the black-bearded man and the girl with the gas-mask. Watch the first episode of the Dark Tournament saga, while Team Urameshi is waiting around before the boat ride, and in one of the shots of the captain of the ship, those two are behind him.), were worthy of mentioning. If you're curious, also, Suurii is my own brainstorm, and so are the details of the 'background' characters that I decide to include, though with the 'background'ers, their original character design isn't mine. 


	23. A New Definition to 'Combat'

**Disclaimer:** Neither Hiei, nor Yu-Yu-Hakusho is mine.

**Claimer:** Chichiro and Ketsue are mine, Kaze is BritKit, Aria is FoxWitch. While not all the characters are mine, all writing, storylines and concepts in this fanfiction (Save any YYH references) are.

* * *

"_By the authority of the Tournament committee, let the first round begin!"_

My eyes scanned the other team…no one was moving. Then again, no one on my team was stepping up either. According to the giant scoreboard with portrait-shot photos of every member of both teams, it had been pre-decided that there would be one-on-one fights. Maybe that was the default and we weren't allowed to change it like in the anime, but I couldn't be sure.

"Will the first competitors please step into the ring!"

I didn't look to Suurii as she spoke, but instead turned to Hiei. "Can I go?"

It may seem odd that I asked, but his answer was what I had half-expected and it was my reasoning for asking. "No." My look alone prompted an explanation. "You don't understand these fights; sit out this first round, or at least a few of the initial battles."

I quirked a single eyebrow. "How can I not understand them? They may be in a tournament of demons, but they're fights all the same."

Hiei nodded his head in the direction of the other team, past the flustered, impatient referee. "Tell me. Would you hold back in killing that little girl?"

I only focused on the small girl for a moment before shifting my gaze from her distracting gas mask back to Hiei. "If she didn't surrender when I obviously had her beat, I would kill her."

Hiei scoffed lightly; obviously it was the answer he had expected. "That was exactly what I assumed. You _don't_ understand. In these fights you cannot afford leniency against anyone, children or not. Your sentiments would get you killed." I gave him a skeptic look, but he ignored it and flickered onto the ring. "Pay attention. You'll see what I mean."

Suurii looked relieved at Hiei's presence, and she turned and pointed to our opponents. "Please send out your fighter, Team Kaisunkei." The huge man with the black beard walked over, the ground fracturing mildly simply at his steps, and as he stepped onto the ring, he towered over both the referee and Hiei. The girl with the gas mask was still perched on his left shoulder, unmoving. Unnerved by the man's size, Suurii steeled herself for a moment before speaking. "I'm sorry, but only one member from each team is allowed in the ring at—"

"Let them." I looked over at Hiei as he dismissed the rules, narrowing my eyes slightly. "If they have a death wish, I should grant it."

"Uh…" The announcer seemed unsure, but apparently if the opponents agreed on a certain fighting style, the rules were bent. "Okay, then. Let the match, Rangarok and Louise versus Hiei, begin!"

The man, who I guessed was Rangarok (and I highly doubted, and hoped, that his name wasn't Louise), shuffled his large form down, bending his knees and gathering his barrel-like arms at his sides, his hands clenched. A huge wave of energy swept from his form, sweeping everything in its path aside like a hurricane wind.

"Whoa, I don't know what he's doing, but Rangarok is sure powering up!"

I felt my eye twitch. I could already tell that Suurii, or Koto, and their play-by-play announcements would piss me off greatly.

Hiei watched unwaveringly as Rangarok's muscles bulged, and Louise leaned forward, one hand on her partner's neck, and one stretched out, palm facing Hiei. I could sense energy gathering into her fingertips and sliding into the center of her hand, and a faint glow began to appear. Before I could blink, the spot where Hiei was standing combusted.

"That was pitifully slow."

I grinned as I looked behind the two Kaisunkei competitors and saw Hiei, looking…bored. I mentally sweat-dropped again. Hiei _really_ didn't take any fight seriously, though I guess if he had such a huge upper hand over these two, he didn't need to.

Louise's answer was the raising of her arm, and again, the section of the ring Hiei was on exploded, sending large chunks of stone everywhere. The girl did not, however, wait until she (Or rather I. Maybe she could, but I sure couldn't in all the smoke) could see Hiei, and her arm slid sideways, making a large arc of the arena explode. After a few more seconds of seemingly random combustions and blasts, she switched so that her left hand was touching Rangarok's shoulder and she turned and reached out her right arm behind her partner, and the other side of the ring exploded.

…I have to admit, I was completely lost. I couldn't see Hiei, and his energy signal was moving too quick for me to follow well enough to really understand where he was. Louise seemed to have no problem following his movements, however, or so I assumed—her attacks were trained on specific spots (Maybe it was the gasmask…it did have goggles. Perhaps she could somehow see through the smoke because of them.).

Within two minutes of Louise's attacks, it was impossible to see any of the ring. Suurii's play-by-plays had switched to coughing within the first thirty seconds, and then she just stopped trying all together.

I glanced over at Kurama, but the fox was expressionless; his face didn't tell me if I should be worried or not, and so I just turned back to the ring and waited for the smoke to clear.

When it did, Rangarok was on the ground in a pool of blood, and Louise was on top of his body, perfectly still, her arms at her sides. Hiei was standing in front of them, holding…what looked like Rangarok's heart. I stared at him as he tossed the huge man's heart aside carelessly, as if throwing away a piece of trash, and he turned to the girl. "Your power comes from his energy, am I right?" He smirked. "Without him, you're as good as defeated."

I had never seen Hiei fight so…viciously. Not that I had actually seen him do it, but he acted completely casual toward what he had done, despite the fact his hand was soaked in blood. I was used to killing things, yes, but I had never ripped something's heart out before.

Louise stared (at least, I assume she did. The gasmask had black lenses in the goggles over her eyes, and I couldn't see where she was looking) silently at Hiei for a moment, not moving, and then she just turned around and walked away, jumping down from the arena in what looked like a surrender.

Again, the announcer didn't seem to know what to do, and she watched as the young girl actually completely left the arena, and then she raised her arm. "And Hiei is the winner! Team Ketsueki earns a point!"

Hiei put his hands in his pocket and walked back to join us, stepping down.

"That was…uh…wow." I feigned a grin. "I never knew you could be so, er, violent."

He shrugged and stood next to us without comment.

"Three more wins and we advance," Kurama commented in what sounded like praise toward Hiei.

"Yeah, nice work," Yusuke agreed, sticking his thumb out in a rather annoying, peppy way toward the fire demon.

"Hn."

I realized Hiei had spared Louise with a single chance to surrender…exactly what he told me _not_ to do. "Patronizing son of a—"

"Will the next fighters please step in the ring!"

"Care for two in a row, half-pint?" Kuwabara threw at Hiei (from a safe distance of three people away.) with a grin.

Hiei glared sideways, but didn't reply.

"Ketsueki Team, please present your combatant."

I looked up at Suurii, standing with her hand on her hip. Behind her, the man dressed in the magician outfit was standing, twirling a black and white wand. I focused on Hiei. "Let me guess…one match wasn't enough to 'observe' properly?"

"What d'you mean?" Yusuke asked, poking me once. "You let Hiei just tell you what you can and can't do?"

I raised my eyebrows at him in an unenthused manner. "When it involves fighting, yes. I don't know enough about demons and battling them. He knows better than I do what I'm capable of."

Yusuke snickered. "Oh, yeah, 'cause you have to be _so_ strong to beat a guy dressed up like Houdini."

I twitched, then said with a smirk, "Alright, then _you_ fight him, O Grand Spirit Detective."

Yusuke blinked at me, then grinned. "I kind of like that title. I think I will!" He flipped backward onto the ring (Or what was left of it. It had at least gone down at least a foot in height, and there was hardly any flat ground left.) and faced the opponent from the Kaisunkei Team. I sighed heavily, deciding not to point out my sarcasm.

"Let the second match, Totadae versus Yusuke, begin!"

I blinked. "'Totadae'?" I quoted. "What kind of name is that?"

"It means 'trickster' in a variation of demon I'm not entirely fluent in," Kurama explained.

"And with what world that language is spoken in," Hiei cut in, "this 'Totadae' should be a formidable opponent."

Totadae leaned against his cane and crossed one leg over the other, pulling his top hat downward to cover all of his facial features besides his mouth, which wore an irking grin. It made him look, for lack of less amusing comparisons, like a Michael Jackson wannabe.

Yusuke watched without moving, his arms crossed and looking creepily Hiei-like in how calm he was. Not that his opponent was anything to be afraid of, at least not in what he had shown so far, but he wasn't concerned by the fact that, just like Louise and Rangarok from the last match, Totadae had begun to surround himself with his own aura, and the spirit detective didn't move at all as the 'trickster's power began to show as a faint red and black glow around his body.

"Just like Rangarok, Totadae is choosing to power up before even trying to attack Yusuke!" Koto said into the microphone, not in her lazed back position any longer. She was leaning forward with her arms on the table in front of her.

"Hey, Koto," Yusuke called over informally to the demoness, waving nonchalantly.

"Hey, Yusuke," Koto replied breezily outside of the microphone, as if they were class mates passing in a hallway. She continued her broadcast as if nothing had happened. "Will we see any originality from the Kaisunkei team? Let's see some blood before the complexities!"

"Yeah," the spirit detective across the ring agreed, "I'm gettin' bored, here."

Totadae grinned, finally looking up and revealing glowing red eyes (Which somehow actually looked creepy, being that although they were over-used in movies and animes, they were obviously quite unusual to see in real life.). He leaned off his cane, then whipped it up off the ground and laid it horizontal in front of him, both hands on either end. He began to bring it out in front of him and started to form an attack…

…When time stopped around me. If only for the briefest of seconds, true, but if time is stopped, seconds can take years before passing. Luckily for me, that was not so, and all that had been 'paused' re-started. My demon sense automatically led my eyes up to one of the various exits at the tip of stairs in the stands, and I locked eyes with Nirvana; I didn't need to be told that she had done it. _Your sensing skills have improved,_ came a telepathic voice in my head, but unlike whom I had expected, it was Nirvana's voice and not Hiei's. Rather, the fire demon beside me didn't seem to notice Nirvana's presence. Maybe he just didn't care—I could believe that, too.

_As if you would know anything of my sensing skills before,_ I replied, unsure of how to speak with her telepathically without a jagan, but she received my response anyway. I didn't admit that she was right, either, even though what she had said wasn't a bad thing.

_On the contrary, my clueless friend._ She smirked. I could barely see the expression from where I stood, but it somehow came off loud and clear to me. _I know much more than you think I do._

_Let me finish your train of thought for you,_ I cut in before she could speak. Before me, something blew up in the ring, but I was already used to that and didn't even blink. _You're going to tell me that you know 'much more' because of Hiei, right? This is leading to another one of your trust games?_

_Perceptive._ She began to turn around, and even before she extended her leg to walk away, she was gone from my sight. Still, she continued to speak. _Just wait. You'll see that they are not games._

_Pssht. Even if they weren't, which we both know they are, you wouldn't benefit from telling me that Hiei wasn't trust-worthy. I'd be suspicious of you and your motives anyway, so why are you doing this?_ My eyes scanned the arena, but there was no sign of her. I could vaguely sense her outside if I focused, but there was too much demon energy around me for me to pinpoint where. _You know you can't break my trust in him. Nothing you say would make me stop trusting Hiei, and nothing you do could, either._

_I suppose we'll find out, won't we?_ she purred in response. _Don't make this difficult on me—meet me outside._

'_Outside',_ I repeated. _Very descriptive. And in case you haven't noticed, my team is in the middle of a round here._

_Yes, but you can't fight yet, according to Hiei._

I twitched. _Yeah, that's true, but he told me to watch the fights, also. Then I_ can _fight, in the next round._

Nirvana's reply was a snicker, and then she finally said, _And you're being so diligent in watching, aren't you?_

My focus had been completely on her, and I honestly had no clue what was going on in the fight. Sliding my gaze from the vacant doorway to the ring, it was clear Totadae had the advantage for the moment. Yusuke wasn't aware of that, of course, and was as arrogant as ever. _Alright, you caught me there. But now that I am paying attention again, have fun trying to bribe me to leave._

_You are aware that this entire tournament is rigged, aren't you?_ She still sounded amused. _Not the fights, exactly, but the way they're carried out. I could have all of you killed easily._

_I'd love to see you find a team who could beat us,_ I shot back.

_Ah, why waste time with murder in fights when I can just use explosives? They're so much more fun._

I sighed lightly, earning a half-annoyed, half-interested look from Hiei, but he was too engrossed in the fight to ask about it, and his eyes returned to watch Yusuke get blown across the ring. I could've sworn I saw the twitch of a smirk at the tips of his lips. _You have me interested. I can't say I believe you, Nirvana, but I'm not in the mood to find out whether or not you're bluffing._

Yusuke stumbled up, an odd sort of smile on his face, as if he were enjoying the pain of getting his ass handed to him. Not that I can agree to the second part, but I would have also enjoyed a fight. Yusuke and I had a few things in common.

"Is that _all_?" he called to Totadae haughtily, spitting blood sideways.

…Still, we were quite different. _How do you suggest I slip away without being noticed, though?_ I asked Nirvana. Hiei may not have cared too much about my annoyed sigh, but if I tried to leave it would probably attract attention. Not that I would care if he followed me to where I met Nirvana, but I'm sure the ram demoness would. When she didn't reply, I said, _Let me finish watching this round and then I'll meet with you. I can't say I'm interested to know what you want, but I'll be bored after this._

_So naïve. Very well, but try and speed up the round._

I blinked. _And how the hell do you expect me to manage that?_

_Hiei told you that you had to watch the first few fights. He didn't say he'd restrict you from fighting in the very last one, did he?_

_Eavesdropper,_ I thought, but didn't give her an answer.

Yusuke was, at the moment, using his shotgun technique…and it was failing miserably. Maybe talking to Nirvana would be more interesting. I wasn't having too much fun watching Yusuke get beat by a guy dressed as a magician. "How much longer will this fight take?" I asked Hiei.

"Assuming he wins, or assuming he looses?" He didn't look at me as he spoke, and his eyes followed the fight. It was almost distracting to watch him, though I can't really explain why; his eyes were just amazing, and they were distracting enough normally without my attention being drawn to their movement.

"Either.'

"If he looses, it'll be over quickly. If he wins, no doubt he'll have some elaborate scheme that he didn't think of until last minute and that no one else can fathom as being able to work even though it will, and it will take a while."

I blinked, then shrugged. "Right. So, can we assume he wins?"

"Why?" Now I had Hiei's interest, at least a minor amount, because he knew me well enough to realize that it probably meant I wanted to leave. He looked sideways at me but didn't move from facing the fight.

"I'm bored," I told him, which was true. I wouldn't mention Nirvana unless I had no choice—I wouldn't lie, but I wouldn't tell him if I didn't have to. I _had_ lied to Nirvana, however—she had me curious. "I'd probably be able to find something to do that was more interesting if I tried. If he is going to take a while to win, I don't need to see how he does it because, as you said, it probably wouldn't make sense to me or anyone else."

The look in Hiei's crimson orbs was skeptic, and he openly challenged what I had said with his gaze, but he didn't comment on his distrust of my reasoning. "Where will you go?"

"Why would you care?" I challenged, only half-joking, and gave him a light grin before turning around and jogging out of the arena. _I'm outside,_ I told Nirvana, looking around. There was still a line of demons, though they were mostly huddled in an arc around a large TV screen, watching the fight. Past them I could see the forest, and being that it was my best bet, I began to head toward it rather than the beach behind me._ Where am I supposed to meet you?_

_That was a fast first round. _By her tone, she knew it wasn't over and was mocking my curiosity. _Just keep walking. You'll sense me eventually._

The 'eventually' was right; I couldn't sense her energy signal anywhere, not even the slightest amount. I had expected to know where she was after I left the arena and went away from the large amount of energy that had clouded my senses.

After I found myself far enough into the woods that I thought I was probably lost, I felt Nirvana's energy nearby. "What do you want?" I asked, leaning against the nearest tree and crossing my arms. I didn't see her, but I knew she was close enough to hear what I said.

"Would you like to know how you'll die?"

I blinked, turning to face Nirvana after my surprise at her odd question ebbed away. "Well that was random. And a bit absurd."

The ram demoness grinned, revealing fangs; I hadn't really thought rams were fanged creatures, but then again I didn't think rams were tall, feminine and had diva lips, either. "Not so absurd. Like you, I have the power of premonitions."

I sighed, shifting my eyes sideways and away from her. "None of my visions have happened. And I won't say 'yet', because I don't have an extreme confidence in their authenticity."

"And you admit this to me and not your demon. _That_ makes sense."

I twitched. "Would you quit calling him my d—"

"Do you want to know, or not?"

"What, how I'm going to die?" I asked, mocking clear in my voice. I was open to a lot of things, but the thought that Nirvana knew how I would meet my end seemed a bit unbelievable.

I noticed when Nirvana's smile never faltered that my enemies rarely kept a straight face. It was mildly vexing. "Yes. Is that sarcasm a no?"

I shrugged. "Go ahead and tell me." I had my suspicions this was another lame trust game; I was mildly wary of her, however…her games never went very far. They always stopped before she got anywhere. I guess I was just waiting for things to get worse.

"You already know," she purred, as if the answer to my demise was obvious. "Not that you'll believe it…yet."

"I don't know what you mean," I muttered disinterestedly. "Make your point; you're boring me."

"You sound so much like him." I glanced over at her as she spoke; she was looking to the sky and acting as if she were speaking fondly of an old friend. "It's really quite sad, how easily he has you tricked." She shifted her gaze onto me and her smile returned. "So young and gullible."

"I'm sure I'm older than you, if you go by past lives," I responded, unaffected by her trickery talk. It was what I had been expecting.

"If you go by lives you cannot remember, I suppose."

"So, let me guess—Hiei's going to kill me?"

"Or lead to your demise, either way."

I kept myself from snickering. I could believe the second, since Hiei always dragged me into life-threatening positions, but I knew she didn't mean that. "Care to elaborate?"

"I'll allow him to do the elaborating. Just wait, he'll try again to kill you soon enough."

I quirked a brow. "'Again'?"

"Surely you haven't forgotten the first time he had you at his mercy, and I don't mean sparring. Sword-point, I believe. He'll have you there again, within the week, but this time he won't go soft and fail to run you through with his blade."

"Right. Goody. Another injury to look forward to." I sighed, standing off my spot leaned against the tree and dropped my sarcasm. "Is that all you wanted to see me for? I was in the middle of watching Yusuke get his ass kicked." Though I hadn't actually said it, I knew she realized that the first round wasn't actually over. Her previous amusement at my presence was enough to make me realize that.

Nirvana feigned a disheartened sigh. "I see. Still don't trust me." She gave a palm-up shrug. "Well, you'll learn soon enough that you should."

"Uhuh." I turned and began to walk away from her.

"You love him, don't you?"

I slowed, debating on ignoring her, but finally I stopped, about ten feet away from where I had stood against the tree trunk. "What's it to you?"

"That's why it's so hard for you to distrust him."

"Pssht. Believe what you like. I'd just like to know why it's so hard for you to learn how to shut it." As I walked back the way I had come, Nirvana didn't comment further.

I used my senses to find my way out of the forest. When I did (As I had a few set backs accidentally following demon trails and having to kick their asses before re-starting), it was already dark out. Seeing as how it had just begun to get light out when we arrived at the arena, I realized I had been gone a long time, though most of the hours I spent away were walking to and from where Nirvana had met me. This island was much larger than I had given it credit for.

Suddenly, I sensed a huge demon power nearby, and I didn't slow my walking, but I did scan the forest around me. Within only a few seconds, I honed in on the location of the familiar energy and whipped around just as I was attacked, blocking a flurry of punches and flipping my opponent over me as I was knocked to the ground. I quickly recovered footing and sprang back about fifteen feet from Hiei, smirking. "Hello to you, too."

"Where have you been?" he asked casually, even as he drew his sword and slashed it at me.

I resisted a grin and shrugged with an equally casual demeanor. "Eh, I was just off listening to Nirvana and her bullshit about trust."

I was about to summon an energy sword when Hiei retrieved a physical, sheathed sword from his belt and chucked it at me. I caught it just below the red tie at the end of the sheath, directly before the hilt. I raised my other arm and pulled the sword out, finding myself completely drawn into the sharpness of the blade, as if a strange form of sadism had attacked me. "Nice, but what's it for?" Hiei lashed out at me, and I blocked with my new sword. "Well, that answers that, but why do you want me to use this rather than my energy sword?"

"In the coming rounds, you'll use quite a bit more energy than you're used to. If you drain yourself enough, you won't be able to summon or sustain an energy sword." Our swords clashed together again, and though I was able to use my right hand again, it was still difficult for me to hold out against him. "You'll have to get used to using a normal sword."

"Mm, how fun." Slashing sideways to knock Hiei's sword away as he attacked again, I flipped backward and landed on the closest tree branch, standing from my crouch. "So, how did the first round go?"

Hiei leapt at me, his sword sheathed, and shot a long trail of fire toward me. I dodged it, landing in the next tree, and began to run along the branches of the edge of the forest in leaps, continuing to evade his attacks as he responded. "Yusuke narrowly won, though for the sake of your sanity I'll leave out the details of how his ridiculous strategy won, and then the fool and Kurama fought, both winning easily."

"Pretty surprising about Kuwabara winning easily."

"Amazing though it may be, it was convenient and got us to the next round."

I was about to ask how only four fights had made us advance, but then I realized that only four had been necessary, since Hiei had defeated the first two in the earliest fight.

Discarding the idea, I finally turned to face the fire demon behind me, sheathing my own sword (I had been carrying the sheath in my left hand) and throwing it upward, I focused my energy into my palm and thrust it at him. Knowing he would easily dodge, I leapt up and caught the sword I had thrown, my hand on the hilt, and with a single yank I retrieved it from the sheath and shot it downward at Hiei. He had tapped down onto the ground, and he narrowly flipped backward and escaped being cut through. I realized he almost looked surprised at my rougher-than-normal attack, and then he smirked. "You're not being as obnoxiously careful as usual."

"I just decided to listen to what you said about not giving anyone leniency." My face wore a matching smirk. "Being that you said I couldn't be lenient even to children, I'd say you count as well."

Hiei tore the sword from the ground, whipping it back at me, and in the split second before it impaled me, I managed to maneuver my arm beneath it and hit it upward, making it spin, and I caught the hilt…only to have Hiei's sword meet my own blade and knock it aside. I felt the steel of his weapon rip into my abdomen in a slash, and I was barely able to avoid getting cut in half. Shooting an energy ball at him, I covered the wound with my left hand, testing how deep it was with a single finger and finding it to be much deeper than I originally gave credit for. I snickered quietly, jumping backward to avoid another swipe of his blade.

"What's so funny?" he asked disinterestedly, not seeming worried about the wound.

"Nothing," I muttered back, stifling my chuckling. _Nirvana just might be right about him leading to my death,_ I thought. "That ram might be right about something, that's all."

"And you found that amusing?" He gave me a weird look that made if clear he didn't understand why I had laughed; my previous statement about him not worrying was true, but he seemed to be wary of killing me on accident, and he sheathed his sword again and began to use only his fists once more.

It became clear to me very quickly that I would have done better off against his sword; for whatever reason, Hiei always held back when using a sword against me, but his fists and kicks were entirely a different story. After I realized attack was no longer an option if I didn't want him to cream me, I switched to completely defensive.

I blocked a kick with my right arm (Which was still painful to do, but tolerable and not agonizing like before), then caught a punch from Hiei's left with my own left hand, ducking to escape a punch from his right, and swinging my leg around to knock his feet from beneath him. Said leg hit nothing but air, and Hiei was behind me suddenly, and the connection between our left hands was now his grip on my wrist, which flung me over him. I caught myself against a tree, but immediately had to kick off of it to avoid his next attack. His fist was glowing with a strange black and purple-blue fire, which looked a bit like the Fist of the Mortal Flame, but I could sense that the attack wasn't as strong. Good thing—he was still going easy on me, at least a bit. True he wasn't easing up as much as he usually did, but he still wasn't trying to kill me.

As his arm swiped past just in front of my face, with me narrowly being able to evade it, the black fire singed a small part of the side of my face, burning in a similar way to how the hide of the entity had burned my right hand, though worse, almost like a powered-down mini Black Dragon Wave. Luckily for me he had, like I said, just grazed my face, or I would have been screwed. A direct punch from that attack didn't seem like a very fun prospect to me, especially after considering that the tree had splintered and smashed in half where his hand _almost_ made contact.

A kick hit me just below my rib cage, and I was thrown backward against another nearby tree, and immediately Hiei crossed his arms in 'x's, and pinned me against the tree roughly and rapidly at his wrists, his fists no longer glowing, and it was obvious who had, yet again, won.

I sensed something just then, even though my breath was relatively constricted and I was debating on telling Hiei to ease up even though I had been planning to attempt to fight back. The energies, as there were four demonic-like creatures near (I almost recognized the energy type, as it seemed familiar, but I couldn't pin-point why.), were very close, and I had to wonder if I had been just that distracted by sparring, or if the power had been masked somehow.

"Well, _this_ is a surprising way to find you two."

Hiei glared over at Spike and the three shadowcats following him, then withdrew his crossed arms. "What are _you_ doing here?"

"Nice to see you as well, Hiei." Spike nodded over at me, and I realized in the darkness that his pupils became round like rather than slits, like true cat eyes. I was almost surprised that I could see that well in the dark, but I was transformed, so I doubted it was any sort of feat to be able to do so. "Greetings, Ketsueki."

I nodded back to him and awkwardly said, "Uh, hi," back, unsure of whether or not to have a cold attitude toward him like Hiei. He didn't seem to be threatening at the moment.

"To answer your question, Hiei," Spike addressed the fire demon, and with a grand wave of his arm to the cats behind him, he finished, "meet Team Kurayami."

I recognized the word (And realized that all the teams so far had 'K' names.) and telepathically said to Hiei, _What does Kurayami mean?_

_Darkness,_ he responded, not shifting his focus from the cats in front of him. _And if you're thinking of Kurayami Sakebigoe, it translates sloppily into Darkness Scream, though in Japanese that's backwards. Obviously someone none-too-skilled in the language came up with the title. _"You shadowcats have entered the Dark Tournament? How fortunate for us." I couldn't tell if Hiei was sarcastic, as he sounded it but it was obvious he wanted nothing more than to battle the four in front of him and probably wanted our team to fight them. "Where is your fifth member?"

I realized then that Asakari and the black-haired male that Hiei had referred to as an almost-friend,as well asthe silver-haired male who had hit my neck when we met and whose name I thought was Skyre were behind Spike.

"Zer's around. I don't keep tabs."

_Zerathus,_ I thought, resisting the urge to narrow my eyes at the name. If our team did fight against the shadowcats, which I guessed they probably would with the rigging help of the tournament committee, it was likely that I would fight Zerathus once more. Then again, Asakari had said something about wanting to fight me…

I felt an arm slide across my shoulders, and I glared over as Spike leaned against me, his other hand lazily on his waist, his eyes closed. "So, Ketsueki, how was sparring? Save any vigor for fighting me?"

…That was unexpected. I hadn't assumed he would be anxious to fight me, being that he had told me before that he would make sure his soldiers _'refrain from harming you'_. "Uh, what?"

"C'mon, you must have room for one more spar. You seem to like fighting enough." He finally opened his eyes and grinned over at me, making mild jealousy spark within me at the length of his fangs; I wished my own wouldn't retract every time I withdrew from my full-demon state.

"Well, at least get off me first," I growled, not allowing myself to blush at the close quarters, and I shoved my left arm against his ribs lightly to tell him to get off me. Like I told him in Z'chor, I liked him even though he had kidnapped me and lied to Hiei, and I didn't want to hurt him. Unfortunately, that didn't seem like an easy way of thinking, being that he didn't move at my hinting nudges.

"Nah, I'm comfortable." Spike looked over to Hiei, who appeared about as annoyed by Spike's contact with me as much as I was. "Would you mind if I stole her from you for a quick fight?"

Hiei didn't glance over at me, but he spoke in my mind. _Are you up for this?_

_Might as well,_ I replied. _I see nothing wrong with it._

"Hn. I don't care."

Spike grinned wider at Hiei's response. "Marvelous!"

Suddenly I was yanked off the ground by an arm behind me, and I 'eep!'ed lightly and found myself heading toward the ground quite fast, as if someone had chucked me. Though, the ground below didn't look like the island, and I doubted anyone could have thrown me far enough to completely change the scenery. The trees below me were not healthy-looking like the trees near the arena, nor were they young; they were bare of leaves, with darkened wood, and they were clearly ancient. The ground was darker than normal soil, as well, and I twisted mid-air and made myself land on one of the trees instead of the dirt. It was drizzling (Another hint that I was not on the island—it had been dark at the island, but not raining), but as soon as I landed, it began to pour. I blinked, scanning the area around me. "Spike?" I said, but my only answer was the loud rain around me. Then I sensed a presence behind me, and the arm across my shoulders returned, from the right this time.

"What do you think? Nice place, no?"

I realized he wasn't being sarcastic, and said, "I guess." I had to admit, I actually did like the dark, dreary atmosphere. It reminded me of a few places familiar to me in Makai. "Where are we?"

"Somewhere," was Spike's familiar, Hiei-like response. "Anyway, you'd best not land on the ground. Good thing you sensed somethin' wrong and didn't in the first place. I don't quite feel like rescuing anyone today."

"Can I ask why?"

"Think of the human-world quick sand and add acid and a bit of demonic curse, and damn what a great concoction you have." As he said the last four words, he swished his arm to indicate the ground below, and I shuddered at the thought of falling in.

"Sounds fun."

"Quite. And, you know, you'd best not stay in a single tree for a while." He disappeared from next to me, and I followed because of what he said and leapt into a different tree, just as the one I had been in swiped at me with a twisted, black branch.

"Er…Spike, why did the tree just try to decapitate me?"

"Demon trees. Ever seen one?" He sounded enthused at the type of tree, so apparently he _liked_ the danger of having to jump across demonically-cursed, acidic quick sand from one demon tree to the next. "These aren't very old ones, though, so they're still pretty violent. Give 'em a few thousand more years and they'll start acting like real demon trees."

I dodged another swipe, and my mind contradicted what he said about them being young, but I figured if he was speaking in thousands of years like it was a few that his definition of 'young' was not the same as mine. "Goody. Uhm, do you intend for us to spar in these?"

"Spar?" Spike chuckled as he said it, and while I sprang to the next tree he landed beside me. "Nah, I don't want to spar you right now. Too dangerous here."

Being that Hiei had been my sparring partner for a long while, no terrain seemed 'too dangerous' for a spar to me. The more dangerous, the more plausible a place to spar to me; Hiei was rubbing off on me. "Then why did you bring me here? And why did you tell Hiei that—"

"Aww, c'mon. You should know by now that I don't ever tell Hiei the truth." I found his blatancy a bit amusing. "He probably suspected something anyway, but he won't waste time world-hopping. He's well aware I won't harm you." Spike's hand grabbed my wrist and he casually flung me from the tree as he leapt up, and where we had just been standing, the demon tree brought its huge branches around; the tips narrowly missed hitting me even as I flew through the air. I barely caught myself on another branch, having crashed into it with my stomach and ribs rather painfully, especially with the sword slashcompliments ofHiei, and I pulled myself on to it, jumping to the next tree and figuring that the tree I had just been in would respond to the rough landing and attack sooner. "At least, not intentionally."

I sighed lightly, the words sounding like my thoughts about Hiei and how Nirvana's words could be seen as true in a way different than what she meant, then growled, "So, if we aren't sparring, why did you bring me here?"

"Come on, don't you ever world-hop for fun?"

I sprang to the next tree, then began to follow Spike's lead of running from branch to branch in (extremely) large strides. "No, I haven't. Is that what we're doing?"

"Nah, we only hopped one world. Nothin' big. That can't really be considered world-hopping unless we added five or six more. Even then, that's a pretty wimpy trip."

"Not really," I muttered back. "I've only been to less than five or six worlds."

"We're going to have to change that some time, then," Spike told me in an honest tone, as if he actually planned on keeping me around him long enough to world-hop.

"Are you still trying to get me for your team?" I asked in response when I thought of it as we both continued to spring from tree-to-tree. It wasn't raining as hard, but I could still see nothing past the first ten trees before me; as we continued, however, the trees began to slope and head downward, as if on a hill. I didn't like it.

"Feh, I'm past that." _Well, that was fast_, I thought. "I have a good enough team already. And if you were on our team, well, then when would I get to fight you?"

I blinked. "So you seriously want to fight me?"

"Maybe. I might let Asakari or Zerathus fight you, though…they both seem to want to."

"Spike, every demon seems to want to fight me. I'm somewhat of a 'boogeyman', remember?"

"True," he replied with a shrug, "but that does not mean every shadowcat feels inclined to. It's quite an honor to have a shadowcat want to fight you, especially three."

"Great," I sighed, catching myself at using Yusuke's sarcasm habit and deciding to no longer use the word 'great' sarcastically, for fear of sounding like the detective. "That's all well and good, but why are we sort-of world-hopping if we aren't going to spar?"

Spike grinned widely at me, and as he grabbed the back of my kimono-like coat by the hood, he said, "What, I'm not allowed to want alone-time with you?" just as he yanked upward.

I dropped down onto the island, not sensing Spike or the other shadowcats anywhere. "Damn, I have _got_ to learn how to do that," I decided, choosing to at least try and ignore the odd flirting style he had just so that I didn't feel awkward around him.

"You don't look like you've been sparring," Hiei noted from somewhere above me. I looked up at him. "Why are you soaked?"

"Spike was, uh, apparently not serious about sparring. So we just went to some world, where it was raining, with a demon-version of quick sand and demon trees and…chatted, I guess. It was kind of pointless, but it kept me occupied." I wrung out my shirt and pant legs, then took off my black over-coat and wrung that out too, putting it back on and resisting a shiver. "I'm going to go grab some dry clothes," I told Hiei, and headed out of the forest.

* * *

"Whoa, what chewed you up and spit you out?" Yusuke asked as I walked into the room. He studied me a bit, then corrected, "Well, I guess they skipped the chewing, but why the hell're you all wet?"

"I world-hopped to some other world and talked to one of our opponents in cheery conversation and earned a mild amount of flirting from him as well," I said flatly, walking over to my bag and digging out a new pair of jeans and a normal black camisole.

"You _what_?" Yusuke said, sounding surprised.

I straightened and glared over at him, then recited in one breath, my tone still flat, "I was abducted by aliens and kept in their experimental water tank and had to endure forty years of excruciating tests that only took twenty minutes parallel to this world, and then I was released, my age was reversed, and now I seriously need therapy. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to change." I turned and went into the bathroom, closing the door behind my and switching my soaked-through clothing for my fresh outfit.

"Oh," I heard Yusuke say back in the other room. "Well, why didn't you just say so?"

I felt my eye twitch, and I gathered my pile of clothes and walked back into the room, stuffing them into my bag, and headed back out the door.

"Hey, where are you going?" I heard Kuwabara ask.

"Some place that lacks a Yusuke and an idiot," I responded, leaving Kurama out of the reasoning since he never really annoyed me. The just-mentioned fox, I could hear, was starting to politely kick Yusuke and Kuwabara out of the room for the night, talking about how we '_can't be sure how long the first round will take, and we should be rested for tomorrow just in case._'

I decided against going back to the forest, since my only reasoning for that would be to find Hiei, and I could sense the fire demon at the cliff. I walked the mile and a half there, but as soon as I was within a hundred feet of the cliff, having come around a curve of trees, I ducked behind one of the nearby tree trunks and blinked. Hiei was talking to Nirvana. I nearly lost concentration with my spirit cuffs from surprise, but I caught myself just before my wrists hit and made noise. Easing my way closer and masking my energy, not worrying too much about both of their telepathy skills, since they seemed engrossed in their conversation, I got within hearing range.

"It doesn't matter what you say," Hiei was growling. Clearly by his tone they had been arguing. "She won't believe you. She trusts me far too much for that."

"I'd say that's a good thing for this, wouldn't you?" the demoness replied. "She'll be so much easier to kill this way."

As Nirvana turned and walked away, supplying me with no further information as to their fight, though it was obvious the subject, Hiei's eye twitched out of vexation. He then sensed me easily, now that his concentration had returned, and without turning, he said, "How much of that did you hear?"

I drew in a deep breath as quietly as possible, steeled myself, then stood from my crouch and replied, "Not much," in the most casual tone I could manage. Hiei hadn't denied anything of what she said—about the killing, I mean. He'd had plenty of time to do so as she walked away. "Why?"

"Because if you heard too little of it you would get the wrong idea," he replied, finally turning from glaring at where Nirvana had disappeared, and looking toward me.

"'Wrong idea'?" I quoted innocently, feigning a grin and forcing myself not to be wary of him. He must have had a reason…maybe he had denied it before and didn't see any need to the second time? It was a lame excuse, but I refused to doubt him for any reason.

"Hn." Hiei turned to face the ocean, his expression no longer visible to me. "What are you doing here?"

"I got bored," I replied, a bit confused. He never seemed to mind when I was around him before, or question it, even if it was often. "Do you, uh, want me to leave?"

"No," he responded tonelessly. "I was just wondering."

I waited for a few minutes to make sure he actually didn't care if I was there or not, but after about two he relaxed and acted normally again. I sat at the cliff's edge, shoving back annoying thoughts about how easy it would be for someone to kill another just by shoving them off, especially with speed like Hiei's, and decided I was way too easily influenced by what fragments of conversations I heard.

"What did you and Spike talk about?" Hiei asked after a long silence, and he sat next to me a few feet off to my left.

"Not much," I told him, my eyes on the moon. It was huge here, much larger seeming than where I lived in Ningenkai. "He just explained why I shouldn't touch the ground wherever we were and why I shouldn't stay in the trees too long, either. He also told me I should world-hop, and then he debated on who he thinks should fight me if our teams meet in the ring, which he's apparently expecting."

"So am I," was Hiei's half-surprising answer. "I'm sure you realize that the later fights of the tournament are normally rigged, and though I hate to admit it, our team is nearly evenly matched with the shadowcats. A perfect round for greedy human gamblers."

"Fun."

Gradually, we eased into an unimportant, normal conversation (Normal for us. I wouldn't think any human would find speaking about strategies on how to kill demons as normal.) and eventually we went back to the forest. When we stopped talking, though silences between us were rarely awkward and this was no exception, Hiei sprang into the closest tree and it was clear to me he wasn't going to move from that tree for the rest of the night. I sat against the base and glanced around for a comfortable-looking place to settle, besides where I currently was, of course.

After another long silence, and as the darkness settled completely over the island, Hiei finally spoke again. "Shouldn't you be getting back to the hotel?"

I looked toward the faintly glowing red 'Hotel Kubikukuri' sign in the distance, then shook my head. "No, I'd rather stay out here with you. Besides, sleeping around Yusuke is unnerving, even if he is a room over." I realized Kurama would be at the hotel room alone, but I was sure he wouldn't mind. If he did, he could always seek out Yusuke and Kuwabara.

Hiei glanced down at me, then gave a light shrug, leaning against the trunk of the tree with his eyes closed. "Alright, suit yourself."

I sigh quietly, closing my eyes as well. I occurred to me that I had never bandaged my midsection, and that I probably should have, but I was feeling lazy and didn't quite want to go back to the hotel. "Hiei, do you think we'll be fighting again tomorrow?"

"I doubt it. It usually takes two days for the entire first round to finish. If it doesn't we might."

I tried to see past the hotel, but with how far off the hotel itself was, I could barely see it; seeing past it would be pretty amazing to be able to do, and thus I couldn't tell whether or not the arena was still in use. I wondered if the fights continued through the night or not.

"You should bandage that," Hiei muttered randomly, not moving to look at me and seeming to have read my thoughts from earlier.

"I was considering it. Where are the bandages here, anyway?"

"Beats me. Ask Kurama."

I looked up at Hiei for a few seconds before imitating his shrug from moments before and standing. "Will do."

* * *

"Bandages? Are you injured?"

"Just something from sparring," I assured Kurama. "Not anything serious, I don't think."

"I thought I smelled blood on you earlier. However you got wet before, it must have washed away most of the scent." Kurama's voice had been muffled before while he rummaged through the cabinets in the bathroom, and now he came back with what looked like a first aid kit…a really _big_ first aid kit. It was about the size of a business suitcase, and when the fox opened it, there were several types of bandages, and a few healing oils and what looked like cheap seals. Definitely not your average human medical kit. "What type of wound is it? Sword?"

"Yup." I watched as Kurama selected a certain type of bandage; there were three lined up next to each other on something similar to a tape roll, only seeming to vary in color, and he unrolled one of the two lighter whites; the third was only slightly darker, with a tan tinge. He also pulled out one of the small bottles of oil from the kit and tossed it to me.

"I'll let you use the oils, as I'm sure you know how. If you'd like, I could help you bandage it."

"Yeah, thanks," I replied as I unscrewed the top of the bottle and applied whatever he had given me. It only stung a minor amount. "I admit, I'm not too expert at bandaging. I've only done it a few times."

After allowing Kurama to wrap the bandages around my midsection, I thanked him a second time.

"Are you and Hiei going to be out all night?" he asked.

I nodded, about to ask if he would be okay alone, but he wasn't a kid and I would have felt weird doing so, so I stopped. "Night," I finally decided to say, and I gave a low wave and left, shutting the door as quietly as possible behind me.

I made my way to the woods again, feeling a bit tired; the oils I had at 'home' were mildly intoxicating just by the smell, and it appeared these were no different.

From no where, Hiei tackled me roughly to the ground. He didn't just knock me down—he actually _tackled_ me. I 'eep!'ed for the second time that say, and I struggled to shove him off. "What the hell?" I growled, a bit annoyed, especially since he had already had his fun with catching me off guard for the day; as well, he had already sparred me and injured me.

I flipped backward when I managed to get him off me, and when I landed I was surprised to see his sword drawn. "What the hell?" I repeated, but I didn't have time to ask him what he was thinking as he slashed at me. I drew my own new sword, which I had strapped to my belt a few hours before, and blocked. "What are you doing? We've been through this already." Knocking his sword aside and leapt back ten feet or so, I made no move to attack back. "I'm really not in the mood to spar. Can we pick this up tomorrow?"

"I think not," Hiei responded, smirking, and I would have thought that was a Hiei-like thing to say, had his tone not been wrong. It was far too self-pleased to sound much like him. He was arrogant, yes, but he wasn't overly-prideful like Yusuke.

Lightning-fast, Hiei was in front of me, and he drove his sword into the seemingly ever-wounded area next to my left shoulder, though this time it was above my collarbone. I think it was three times now that I had been stabbed there, twice bitten, and possibly more wounds I was too tired to recall. That was beginning to be like how Kurama was always injured on his stomach in the anime. These toneless thoughts passed through my mind as Hiei stabbed his sword into the tree behind me, pinning me there by his blade, and our eyes met. As they did, I smirked. "Nice try, Nirvana. You got Hiei's eyes wrong."

Hiei looked surprised a moment, and then he gave a theatric sigh and his form morphed into the taller ram demoness. "How droll. I was so hoping you wouldn't notice the differences for a while. I was having fun."

"I'm sure," I muttered, snapping the sword run through me in half and wrenching the shard still in it from my flesh. "What were you trying to do this time, anyway? I'm sure you knew I would recognize you eventually. Why bother?"

"Well, I had more faith in my façade. You just know him too well." She sighed, not attacking or getting into a defensive position, and she leaned onto her right shoulder against the tree next to the one I had been stabbed onto. "What was wrong with the eyes, anyway?"

It seemed almost funny to me that I was bleeding quite profusely and that my enemy and I were acting as though we were friends criticizing a play. "You think I'll tell you for future reference?" I responded chidingly, then turned around, confident she would not attack again. It had become clear to me that she only tried to injure me if it involved breaking my trust in Hiei.

"Yes, well, after I asked the question, your mind answered for you."

"Sorry, I don't believe that you saw the thoughts," I replied. I had much less faith in Nirvana's telepathy than I did in Hiei's jagan.

_And that would make sense,_ Nirvana said in my mind, despite my minor mind-block, _if I was not able to morph halfway and give myself his jagan. Your mind said that his eyes were a bit brown, and the look in them was different. Apparently I also got his tone wrong. I never was one for disguising my voice._

I rolled my eyes and said nothing back, my feet leading back to the hotel again. Briefly I wondered where the real Hiei had been through that, but I decided he had probably been asleep, didn't sense Nirvana for some reason, or thought that I could handle it by myself.

Once I dragged myself upstairs wearily, I leaned against the edge of the door frame of our room, knocking lightly on the door.

It took Kurama a moment to open it, and when he did he seemed tired. "Ketsue? What is it?" His eyes traveled to my new wound just as he said it and he stood from the doorway to let me in.

"Hey, Kurama," I sighed wearily, wanting quite badly to sleep and thinking that I might end up staying in the hotel for the night after all, and I walked into the room and watched as Kurama went back for the first-aid kit again. I went to sit on the black leather couch, wondering how peeved the hotel would be upon discovering a blood stain on their expensive furniture; I then realized it was probably a common occurrence at the Dark Tournament. "I think I might need another bandage."


	24. Fear

**Disclaimer:** Neither Hiei, nor Yu-Yu-Hakusho is mine.

**Claimer:** Chichiro and Ketsue are mine, Kaze is BritKit, Aria is FoxWitch. While not all the characters are mine, all writing, storylines and concepts in this fanfiction (Save any YYH references) are.

* * *

"And, uh, how did we not notice this?" 

I twitched at the sound of Yusuke's voice, but didn't move. I was sore and still quite tired. Besides, the couch was comfortable.

"You say she's met with her twice already without our knowledge?" Kurama's voice cut in.

"Both of them yesterday," Hiei confirmed; as I heard the fire demon speak from somewhere very near me, I willed myself to actually listen to the conversation. It was already obvious that they were talking about Nirvana and I. "I can't figure out why she's targeting Ketsue." I felt his red eyes on me for a moment, then he said, "Do you have any idea why?" which was directed at me. Apparently he was very skilled in knowing when someone was awake.

"To get back at you?" I suggested drowsily. I heard Yusuke whisper to Kuwabara 'How long has she been awake?' as I opened my eyes. Kurama was not in my sight, which I assumed meant he was on one of the beds or standing behind the couch I was on; Yusuke and Kuwabara were on the other couch, and Hiei was sitting at the end of the one I was currently curled up on.

I didn't sit up or move, and as soon as I assessed where everyone was, I closed my eyes again.

"So," Yusuke said after a short silence between all of them, drawing out the word and making it clear he was about to say something that would probably offend or annoy someone in the room, "Nirvana gave her the shoulder wound…then who gave her the stomach wound? I mean, that looks a bit more serious to me."

"Neither of them are serious," I growled in response. It was plain in the detective's voice that he knew Hiei had done it, and I really wasn't in the mood for his teasing.

Taking advantage of the brief pause to change the subject and rescue Hiei and I from Yusuke's pestering, Kurama said, "Would you like a cup of coffee, Ketsue? They just brought it not too long ago up to the room along with croissants, same as yesterday."

"Coffee?" I mumbled back, lifting one eyelid and looking lazily at the cup Kurama was offering me with criticizing eyes. "Is it alcoholic?"

"I wish," Yusuke cut in, louder than necessary, as he seemed to have felt left out now that everyone was ignoring him.

"That's a no?" I asked Kurama, figuring the fox's word was more trustworthy than the detective's.

"It's just normal coffee," he assured me, and as I sat up he handed it to me and pointed toward the door to a small side-table with a silver tray. "The croissants are over there if you'd like one."

Concentrating my energy and making my shirt long-sleeved, I pulled the fabric over my hands to pick up the cup and pulled my legs close to me; the room was a bit cold, and I realized I had slept without a blanket. "What're we going to do today?"

"Sight-see, go souvenir shopping—" I stared at Yusuke in mild disbelief at his second suggestion, mild only because of who was saying it. The only souvenirs I could think of that you could probably get at this tournament were your opponents' heads. "—sit around and talk, stalk a few paranoid demons, or…" He grinned deviously and I knew what he would finish with before he said it. "…we could just spar a bit."

I felt my eye twitch, but before Yusuke could say anything that further endangered his health, Kurama gave a light cough and said, "Well, the lunch buffet should be open now, if you all want to—" Kuwabara and the detective scrambled over each other and ran to the door, disappearing down the hall and leaving it open. Kurama didn't seem to even notice their absence, though he casually reformed his sentence and said it for mine and Hiei's benefit as though he had planned it from the start. "—go scope out the competition."

"Do you even know who we're facing tomorrow?" Hiei asked, sounding doubtful. "Not all of the teams have fought yet."

"We're past the first round, Hiei," Kurama responded, as if chiding a small child. "You know they'll begin rigging it for the gamblers within the next two rounds, though I'm betting on the first." _No pun intended,_ I thought absently, then stood and walked over to grab a croissant and close the door, which the two demons near me had been neglecting. "There are two teams that I would see as the most plausible for us to fight, one of them obviously being Spike's. The second I have seen around the island, though I don't know their name."

"And what is so special about this team?"

I walked back and sat down next to Hiei as Kurama answered his question. "Their powers aren't very specialized, but their bodies themselves are strong enough to possibly rival our energies." He paused, then added, "And it may just help that most of them are over twenty feet tall."

Somehow that made fighting Spike's team much more desirable. Note sarcasm on the 'somehow'. "Well, when are they fighting?" I asked, munching on the croissant.

"Depending on how long the other fights take, an hour to several hours." Kurama walked toward the door as he continued, "There is a pair of teams that have been fighting for quite a long while. It seems they're incredibly evenly matched, and though that makes for long, interesting fights, by the end of them both of the competitors are completely worn out and it's rather…anti-climactic. I'm going to go finish watching the round. I'm interested to see who will prevail."

_Prevail…?_ I thought, wondering if there was any human I knew who would use 'prevail' rather than 'win', and then Hiei stood next to me. "Going somewhere, too?" I asked.

"I'm bored," Hiei muttered, and in a single blink of my eyes he was next to the door that was still slowly sliding shut behind Kurama, who had swung it gently as he left.

"What'll you do, then?" I said, considering what I would do when left alone. Yusuke and Kuwabara wouldn't return to the room for a while, Kurama would probably spend the rest of the day watching the fights, and there was no telling what Hiei would be doing.

"I'm sure I'll find something," he told me in response, and the door clicked shut before I even saw him move.

Sighing, I laid back on the couch, though suddenly it dropped from behind me and I was thrown into darkness. It had happened, though normally not when I was fully conscious, enough times for me to know that it was probably a vision (Either that or Kurama lied and the coffee _did_ have alcohol in it.).

I blinked, and immediately the darkness was dragged away like a fog clearing, and I was standing somewhere outside the arena, which looked to be suffering horribly. It hadn't been in that bad of shape after my team fought…an entire side was missing, and most of the upper-level seats were gone. I narrowed my eyes at it before movement caught my eye, and I turned, my hand automatically on the hilt of my sword, but I relaxed when I saw myself standing about fifty feet in front of me. So this _was_ a vision. As soon as my eyes locked on the 'future'-me, I was standing right next to her, facing the same direction she was.

"She was right." I turned, my future self mimicking my movement exactly, to face the hollow voice behind us. It was all too familiar to me. "Your trust _did_ make you easier to kill."

My eyes widened as I saw a blade run through the version of myself I was watching, and after only a few seconds, the person holding it wrenched it from her chest in an achingly familiar way. I stared up in disbelief at Hiei as he sheathed the sword, but my surprise did not fade by finding out that it was Nirvana...because it _wasn't_ her. It was Hiei, completely…every detail was correct—the look and color in his eyes, the way he held his sword, his demeanor…I was barely even aware of my future self dropping to her knees before him, but as I uncomprehendingly shifted my eyes to her, she wore the same expression I knew I was wearing then—blank disbelief. "You…did this…to me?" she whispered hoarsely, and her eyes closed as her form fell sideways and hit the grass, the pool of blood around her widening.

I stifled a gasp as I sat up, on the couch again, drenched in a cold sweat; my legs were shaking horribly, and my heart was pounding in my chest. I felt numb. "H-Hiei," I hissed softly, the name making me flinch automatically, and I looked up toward the door he had left through. _He…couldn't._ I drew a hand to my brow, pulling my knees to my chest and attempting to calm my breathing. _No,_ I thought, _he really couldn't. I still….there's no telling that my visions are reliable. I could have just…imagined it. Dreamt it._ _After all, Nirvana has been messing with my mind a lot lately._ Even as I blamed it on her, I knew I didn't actually believe she had done that. I hadn't felt a presence enter my mind, and it just felt wrong to say she had done it.

Letting out a low sigh, closing my eyes and cradling my head in my hands, I calmed myself down, then stood on shaky, still-trembling legs. Nirvana had said something about this…about Hiei killing me. I wasn't sure, but that stab wound didn't look very survivable (Not to say that most of my wounds shouldn't have been fatal, but this was seemed to be the worst yet.). Even as I walked to the door and left the hotel, following the nearest large energy signal familiar to me, I felt as though I was walking into a trap. _Am I actually going to Nirvana for…advice?_ I decided to consider it simple questioning, not seeking advice. I didn't trust her…I couldn't let myself, either.

The energy I felt in the woods as I neared it was the energy I knew best—Hiei's. I had passed the arena, which was in vastly better shape than in my 'vision', or dream, or whatever I should consider it, so I had faith that even if it had been some sort of vision that it wouldn't happen today.

He was lighting a cigarette when I found him, though he was using only his index finger to create flame, not a lighter. Smoking seemed completely unlike him, and when I entered the clearing, he looked up, dragging on the cigarette once before pulling it from his lips and blowing smoke toward me. His eyes were off-color.

"Nirvana," I mumbled. "I thought I sensed you around."

"Hn. Good guess." He closed his eyes, but didn't openly identify himself as Nirvana, and I leaned against a tree at the edge of the clearing, about twenty feet away from him, and put my hands in my pockets.

"Why are you transformed?" I asked, when he didn't return to Nirvana.

Opening his too-brown eyes to regard me without expression, he shrugged, then shifted, his form growing taller and female, ram horns curling from beneath his black hair, which rapidly changed to brunette and lengthened. "I forgot. I was trying to perfect my Hiei transformation. Got side-tracked." She took another drag on her cigarette.

"So I could tell." I tried not to give away anything that hinted that I actually wanted to ask her about her vision, or mine, but I could feel her gaze on me still.

"You finally shared my vision, did you?"

I blinked over at her, having kept my eyes on my shoes, but said nothing.

"If you joined me we could kill him together, you know. It would save you."

I grimaced at the simple thought of killing Hiei, then mumbled, "Even if he was going to kill me, I wouldn't kill him first."

"Of course not. You're too simple."

"'Simple'?" I quoted, glaring at her. "What do you mean by that?"

"You see things as plain and without variable. You think that you have no way of getting out of being killed by him, because you refuse to do anything that goes against him, so you're just waiting to be killed."

"I don't believe what I saw was a vision," I responded evenly, though I knew she could hear the tiniest betraying sound in my voice that told otherwise. I honestly wasn't sure about what I had seen. "Why do you?"

"The only reason I am able to have premonitions is because I can take the ability from you, same as how I can acquire Hiei's jagan without fully transforming into him." The cigarette returned to her lips again.

I stared at her, then began to laugh; it was feigned, but it was so surprisingly convincing and halfway-infectious that I actually began to chuckle, and I had to stop myself before being able to meet her indignant look.

"What the hell is so funny?"

"You took _my_ ability to 'see into the future', and you _believed_ it?" I grinned. "You're not too smart, are you?"

Nirvana regained her cool attitude and her 'I am superior to you' look that pissed me off so badly, smirking. "Just because you do not have faith in your visions does not mean they are not true. They will come in due time."

"Whatever." I closed my eyes; again, it may seem odd that I was so comfortable letting my guard down around Nirvana, but it was still obviously only fun to her to wound me if I thought it was Hiei doing it. She was the typical villain—she enjoyed screwing with trust and relationships much more than actually harming her enemies. "They better come pretty quickly, because it's been a while since I had a 'vision' that involved me saying 'not two weeks ago'."

My mind replayed the vision from after the S-class demon's attack, which had led to the human saying 'You…you're that bitch who killed Rex, aren't you?' and ultimately what looked like a severe-to-fatal wound to be inflicted on myself.

"_By 'demons' I didn't mean only the weak ones."_

"_Yes you did. I can read your mind."_

"…_Shut up."_

_Hiei smirked. "You seem to like that phrase a lot, lately."_

"_You should talk. You just told Yusuke to shut up not two weeks ago."_

"That makes me doubt that it'll happen."

"Judging by what you recall of it—" When I looked up, a purple third eye was on her brow. It didn't look like I would have imagined it, but then again, this wasn't _really_ Hiei's jagan. If Nirvana could get his normal eyes wrong, there was no telling how badly she could mess up a jagan—it was actually smaller than a normal eye, but perhaps she was only changing the size (As I suspected she could) to keep it from being as noticeable. "—all that has to happen for that to come true is for Hiei to say 'shut up' again, two weeks before it happens. It isn't that difficult to see how that would play out. Besides," she added, "how often have you used 'shut up' lately?" As she once again puffed on the cigarette, before dropping it on the ground and pinching it out with her foot, I considered.

Come to think of it, not often. "That still doesn't prove that it will happen."

"And how about the vision about Keicchirin?"

Annoyingly enough, she didn't even seem like she had to concentrate to delve deeper into my mind to harvest the thoughts of my other 'vision'. "I've never even _met_ Keicchirin."

"You will soon," she purred. "He wants revenge on Hiei."

"For killing me, right?" I responded with an automatically unenthusiastic voice. I knew I could no more easily pry the details of why Hiei had killed Chichiro from Nirvana than I could from Hiei himself.

"Of course. But according to your premonition, in the coming months you will find out why it happened and cease to blame Hiei for it."

"I already don't blame him," I replied, finding the conversation as useless as I could have predicted it would be. I wasn't learning anything from it, and Nirvana was insistent on trying to make me believe that Hiei _would_ kill me, so there was no reason to try and return to what I had seen.

"As amusing as this small talk is," Nirvana purred after a moment of silence, the jagan on her brow fading and returning to smooth skin, "don't you have a tournament round to get to?"

I blinked. "Our fight isn't until tomorrow."

"It _wouldn't_ have been until tomorrow, had the other fights not gone rapidly."

"…Crap." I looked backwards, and sure enough, I could sense Hiei and Kurama heading toward the arena.

"You will come to believe me, and not him," came a voice next to my ear, though it was Hiei's—Nirvana had transformed again. Fangs brushed over my neck, and I twitched, pressing myself against the tree and shivering, but then Nirvana was gone, and I was left alone again.

"Jeez, you're a twisted bitch," I muttered, rubbing the two thin cuts on the side of my neck from where her (Rather Hiei's, being the form she had been in) fangs had grazed my skin. I sighed lightly, then pivoted and ran back toward the arena to join my team.

"Where were you?" was Hiei's less-than-friendly greeting when I walked toward them, standing next to the ring.

Suurii was speaking to the other team, which was _definitely_ not Spike's. Kurama hadn't been lying. Only two of the members were twenty feet tall or shorter, though. The others were taller. I snapped myself out of staring at them, and said, I ignoring my 'vision' and refusing to allow myself to be wary of Hiei, "Talking to Nirvana again."

"Jeez, you guys're practically on a friendly first-name-basis now, aren't you?" Yusuke said from a few people over. Next to Hiei stood Kurama, then Kuwabara, and then Yusuke.

Just a long enough distance away that I couldn't kick him for the comment. "I guess you could say that, moron."

"Ooo, touchy. Nice insult, by the way."

I growled at Yusuke's sarcasm, but before I could respond with an insult good enough to satisfy the detective, Kurama broke in. He really was starting to act like the peacekeeper of the group, which I hadn't previously pegged him for. "Please, concentrate on the round, you two. We'll need you to fight, Ketsue."

I grinned. "Good. I'm sick of waiting."

"That doesn't mean you can go first," Hiei muttered, glancing sideways.

"Pssht. Try and keep me from the ring," I growled back, glaring at him challengingly.

I saw Yusuke and Kuwabara raise their eyebrows at one another in mild surprise that Hiei and I were half-bickering.

"Alright, now that Suurii has settled that the Yasuke Team's replacement member can indeed be added," Koto said into the microphone, making me jump lightly, since I wasn't expecting that loud of noise then, "we can start the second round!"

"Replacement member?" I asked quietly.

"Someone from their team must have been killed," Hiei answered.

"The winner of this round, as well as all other matches in this round, will be advancing to the semi finals. Teams, please send in your combatants!"

I felt Hiei glare warningly at me, and I glared back at him with equal force, then walked over to the ring, hopping up onto it. It seemed they had somehow found a replacement ring, as it was level again and not missing chunks of stone.

"Hiei," I heard Kurama mumble, "just let her fight. Being that she still hasn't fought in the tournament yet, and that she may seem more human-like than the rest of our team, they may send out their weaker fighter. She'll be fine."

"I'm not worried for her welfare," the fire demon snapped back. "I'm worried for our team's ability to win and advance."

My eye twitched, but my focus was distracted as one of the demons from the other team stepped up. He was bulky, muscular, and about thirty feet tall. His size versus his height almost made him look out of proportion, and if he had been much shorter and smaller, I think he would have resembled a true midget. I snickered at the thought.

"Is something funny, puny one?" he growled, his voice deep enough to strain my ears, and loud enough to hurt them.

"Nothing at all," I assured him innocently.

"Are you ready to be crushed?" he asked with an arrogant grin.

I had honestly never heard anyone really ask stupid questions like that outside of an anime. "You have size," I muttered back, quoting what Toguro had said to the Spirit Warriors team in the anime, "and that is all."

"Let the match begin!" Suurii called, but I didn't catch the demon's name. It had probably been said before, and I hadn't paid attention.

"Oh, bite my ankles, short stuff," the demon snarled at me, and a rough kick planted itself on my ribs. The kick, I realized, barely used any of his power, and yet because of his size it sent me flying into the wall.

"And she's out of the ring!" cried the announcer enthusiastically. "I'll start the count! One!"

I coughed roughly, feeling blood run from my lips, and then I shoved myself from the rubble of what had been the wall, just before the stands. "Two!" I wiped the blood from my chin and struggled to keep myself on my feet. "Three!" My head was swimming from the impact, and I knew that I had to get back into the ring before ten, but I also knew that if I tried to walk before I recovered that I would probably double-over. "Four!"

"Ketsue!" Hiei called to me, sounding far more impatient than worried. "Hurry up! Get back in the ring!"

I gritted my teeth and felt a low growl rising in my throat, and I glared at Hiei, my sight spontaneously not clouded anymore. "Hey, back off Jaganshi—" ("Five!") "—or I'll be coming after _you_!"

"Six!"

My glare shifted to the announcer, and I sprang into the air and tapped down on the ring again. The tall demon I was facing gave an annoyed grimace, and over the announcer's call that I was back in the ring, he said, "You back again already?"

I said nothing in return, whipping my sword from its sheath and leaping at him, slashing across his front, but he stepped back and avoided the blade. He raised his leg again, swinging it at me, and this time I moved the slightest bit and allowed myself to be hit. From the sidelines, I heard Hiei say to Kurama, "What is she thinking? That was intentional!"

"Patience," Kurama's lighter tone responded as I dug my claws into the demon's foot, which was roughly my size. "I'm sure she has something planned."

"You said to bite your ankles?" I asked the demon in a throaty voice, more of a reminder than a question. As his foot lowered again, I slid down it and hung onto the back of his leg, grinning, then said, "As you wish," and bit into the tendon on his ankle. The demon howled in pain, and I sprang back and released my fangs from his Achilles' heel to avoid his swiping hand. I could tell by his already sluggish movements that the bite had its intended effect, and he was loosing blood rapidly. It was simple to use his body to kick up like steppingstones, being that his arms were slow in swinging at me, and I flipped backward and kicked my foot roughly up onto the bottom of his chin, landing neatly on the stone floor of the arena as he flew backward and smashed into it a tad bit harder than I had. I raised my sword again, then whipped it at him as he struggled to sit up and fight (or run), watching it pierce his skull. His eyes widened, then went unfocused, and he slammed back to the ground. I sighed lightly. _That went way too fast,_ I decided.

"And the winner is Ketsue! One point to Team Ketsueki!"

Figuring that the reason she called me Ketsue rather than the 'more formal' Ketsueki was because of my team's name, I turned back to face them, speaking what I had thought earlier. "That went by too fast."

"Feel free to fight again," Kurama said with a nod and a rather cheerful smile, which I found a bit creepy only because of how innocent he looked. Innocence and fox demons or demon thieves didn't mix at all.

I grinned back, though. A fifteen-foot demon stepped up onto the ring, pulling my sword (which, though he was much smaller than his teammate, looked like a toy in his hands) from his comrade's skull and kicking the larger demon sideways, off of the ring. I raised my eyebrows but didn't comment, shifting my gaze back to my new opponent. He threw the sword out at me, and I leapt up to evade it; it whipped past me and impaled the wall behind me. I glared backward at it, sighing. _Guess this is a hands and energy only match for me._ And it would have been, if Hiei hadn't called my name and threw his own sword into the ring. I caught it, blinking, and looked over at him. _Hiei? Trust_ me _with his sword? …Weiiird. And a little creepy._ Why was everything my team was doing translate to creepy, even though they were only being friendly or helpful? I settled that it was because 'friendly' and 'helpful' didn't match demons.

"Uh…thanks!"

"Please, Momotari, no more attacks before the fight starts," Suurii said, holding out her arm as if it would stop my opponent. The demon glared at her, his eyes flashing in a strange way, as if they had shifted colors for a split second, but made no move to threaten my health again. After waiting a moment, and giving me enough time to untie the hilt of my other sword and place Hiei's on my belt instead, she threw her arm up between us and shouted, "Hajime!"

_Hajime?_ I thought; I recognized the word, and it took me a moment to recall that it was what my sensei had used in karate class for 'begin'. _Didn't she say 'begin' in English before?_

Momotari broke into my thoughts by swinging a large axe, which had previously been strapped to his back, at me. I sprang up and leapt over it, kicking off of the steel and throwing myself out at him. Yanking my sword, rather Hiei's, from its sheath, I stabbed it into his swinging hand like crucifixion nail as it swung at me. Dragging it upward and hoping that it was as strong as an energy sword, I was slowed as it cut through the flesh of his hand; the blade surfaced and was ripped from his skin between his middle and ring finger, his hand almost completely cut in half. He didn't seem to care, however—didn't flinch once. Instead, he brought up his other arm as I finished my leap and landed on his left shoulder, attempting to grab me. I flipped off of him, but his reflexes suddenly became much faster (Fast enough for his size that it seemed almost unrealistic) and the back of his hand hit me above my shoulder blades, driving me into the stone ring face-first.

Hearing a snap and finding myself unable to breathe (Even after I struggled to roll out of the way as his hand came around again, smashing into the ring, and even after my nose was uncovered and not shoved into rock any longer) through my nose, I guessed it was broken. I tested my face with a finger, found my nose to be sore, to understate, and then got a hold of it with my thumb and index finger, cracking it the opposite direction and hearing (and feeling) it snap back into place. To make it clear, my nose was still broken, but now the cartilage was back where it should be rather than flattened against my face.

"Ooo, I've seen that before! That nose looks pretty broken to me!" My eye twitched again at Koto's commentary. "And look at all that blood, too! I _love_ the brutality of Momotari—let's just hope it gets better!"

_Better?_ I thought. 'Better' probably meant breaking bones rather than cartilage, and probably meant the fight ending with me as a barely recognizable (and quite dead, not to mention defeated) bloody pulp. _Fun._

I leapt back as his axe came around again, although I hadn't seen where he had somehow stashed it when swinging his hands at me, and I spun around while summoning energy orbs in my palms, shooting them out at Momotari. The taller demon was able to evade them easily enough, but as I sent out a second round the hilt of his axe was not so lucky. The blade went flying through the air and crashed into the ground, spinning up the stands and slicing at least thirty of them in half (Or simply severing limbs for the lucky ones); unfortunately enough for me, when he raised his hand and sent out a weird form of demon energy I didn't recognize, it began to slide backward, and it proceeded to roll back down and into his outstretched hand. He didn't bother trying to reattach the blade to the handle, but instead just brandished it as-was, and swung it around in an arc.

From the sidelines I heard Yusuke mutter something, and though I hadn't heard the word since I was roughly six from on the news, I thought I recognized 'machete'. I figured Yusuke wasn't stupid enough to think an axe was a machete, but I kind of hoped he was; Momotari's axe, though faster than it should have been at its size, was rather slow, and I would have a much easier time facing it than a machete. Then I realized I wasn't giving myself enough credit, and that I could probably face either weapon.

…Then again, wasn't it the general Yu-Yu-Hakusho philosophy that underestimating an opponent was the first step to defeat? _Hey_, I though mildly to myself, _if I can still think of anime, I must not be in too much danger._ After a short pause while leaping away from the axe again, I added, _Then again, I do think pretty calmly when I'm being injured as well._ It ceased to be a condolence, though through the adrenaline and sheer satisfaction this fight was bringing me, I didn't really need condolence.

As Yusuke had previously mentioned, directly after Momotari chucked his axe blade at me without effect (as I was easily able to dodge. He had, to be blunt, thrown it clumsily and I barely had to step aside to avoid being hit), the demon drew another weapon from its place strapped to his back—it must have been hidden by the axe before for me not to see it. This weapon, obviously, was a machete…an over-sized machete that seemed much more dangerous than the ones I'd seen on the news when I was little, but a machete all the same.

"Wow, people, I haven't seen a weapon like that in years! It's…beautiful!" This was, of course, Koto's enthusiastic commentary.

I have to admit, I was quite a bit less enthusiastic than she was toward the blade. Especially when Momotari raised it, wielding it in a none-too-graceful way, and lashed out at me with it; in this time I realized just exactly how over-sized it was. I was positioned maybe twenty feet from him, but I still had to spring back at least seven feet to escape having my torso cut from my waist.

For more than five, long minutes, I was unable to do anything but dodge. I couldn't even concentrate on summoning energy, let alone using a sword. Why his attacks had suddenly become much more dangerous was lost to me, but whatever the reason, I was unable to get close enough to him to even attempt at making an offensive move of my own.

Finally I decided to use his machete to kick off of so that I could get high enough to quickly summon energy, at least to distract him, and form an attack. This might have worked, had he not been able to predict my move when my dodging slowed the slightest bit, and I found my legs knocked from beneath me by his machete; I'm not sure how he managed not to cut off my legs from my ankles-down, or why he didn't, but I only received a fairly painful, inch-and-a-half deep cut on the side of my right leg. Glad suddenly that my leg had been injured in the time I had been in Z'chor, so that I had a at least a small amount of practice time, I gathered myself and shot sideways just as Momotari's blade came at me once again.

The fight was becoming redundant. Quite so. Since my defense was much slower thanks to my leg, it was more dangerous and there was a newer, stronger flow of adrenaline, but even still I felt myself quickly becoming bored with the repetitive nature.

Koto had noticed the same, for even her commentary slowed; she barely announced anything.

Mustering whatever speed I could, I decided to try a Yusuke-style move: blindly charge straight at the enemy even if it was a suicide charge. Surprisingly enough to me, Momotari's Hiei-like ability to predict my moves failed this time, and the swing of his blade was sluggish from the apparently unexpected style of my offense. Taking advantage of this, I leapt into the air and kicked the front of his neck, a slightly-changed attack from how I had brought down the other demon in this round, and felt a great satisfaction at seeing him fall backward.

Strange—I didn't seem to be enjoying this fight. I _always_ enjoyed fighting. I would have assumed it was because of my premonition, or whatever that had been, but then it probably would have effected my first fight as well. I was able to enjoy that one well enough.

…Come to think of it, I _had_ been able to torment my opponent verbally and actually carry out his foolish request. I think it would have been impossible for me not to enjoy that when it lacked a long string of annoying, angsty themes that would make me unable to enjoy anything. Now that I wasn't having fun teasing someone, I was able to think of those annoying, angsty themes that haunted my mind before the fights, so it could only be assumed that was why I wasn't amusing myself in fighting. In any case, I was sure this would be my last battle for this round—a boring fight wasn't worth fighting to me.

Had this been a spar, I would have just forfeited or said that I was bored and quit fighting. Unfortunately it wasn't, and I had to kill this demon before being able to laze around and watch other people fight. On the fortunate side, it looked as though my battle was nearly over. Momotari was on the ground, and all I had to do was stab him or sever his head or keep him down for a ten count. Speaking of, I heard Suurii shout, "One!" from just outside the ring. I decided against drawing my sword, and I was about to summon energy to make sure Momotari wasn't going to get back up, but then I sensed Nirvana from beside the opposite end of the ring. Pivoting to glare at her suspiciously, I ignored Suurii's shout of, "Two!"

_Beat two in your first round in the Dark Tournament?_ she asked me through mind-speak, her voice almost mocking. _Impressive_. As I debated between thanking her with equal sarcasm or telling her to fuck off, I felt Hiei's eyes on me when I turned, and even though he said nothing telepathically or out loud, I knew he was warning me not to trust Nirvana…I'm not sure how I knew that, or why he would tell me something that obvious. Then again, I _had_ gone to her about my vision, hadn't I? Not to say I could have gone to Hiei, with what I had seen, but I could have chosen someone else. I didn't regret going to her—nothing bad came from it, and I didn't trust her…did I?

"Four!"

It was after Suurii's four sounded broken, as if from surprise, that I realized Hiei's warning glance had not been about Nirvana—he had been telling me not to pay attention to her, not warning me not to trust her. I sensed movement behind me just in time for me to be unable to move to attack, turn around or block Momotari's last-minute strike. His machete dug into my back, not very far in (for a blade that large, at least. It was still several inches in.) and without as much force as I knew he was capable; as well, it was much lower than his attack range should have been, at the height a person of my stature would have stabbed, and I realized he was probably still on the ground and trying to kill me even if he was about to loose.

I'm guessing Momotari had only just moved, and that Hiei had had a hunch, for reasoning as to why he and the others had said nothing out loud—then again, I had seen Hiei try to and probably succeed in killing me in my vision. Why not allow someone else to do the dirty work?

There I was again, almost (if not) trusting Nirvana.

These strangely-calm thoughts (that proved that I thought calmly when being injured) seemed rather unimportant as I heard Koto's voice. "Ooo, what an _awesome_ last-minute attack!" she cried enthusiastically. "But since Momotari is still on the ground, if Ketsue—" Suurii's microphone had apparently been muted, because as she said 'Seven!' the sound wasn't amplified. "—manages to stay on her feet for the rest of the count, she still wins!"

"Eight! …Nine! …Ten! Ketsue is the winner! Team Ketsueki earns another point!"

I looked backward at Koto, who was behind me and closer than Suurrii. "I won?" I asked, knowing only she and I (And possibly Momotari or Suurii) could hear what I said. Koto nodded at me. "So I don't have to keep standing anymore?"

Outside of the microphone, she said, "Feel free to pass out at any time," with a wave of her hand.

Obliging willingly, I let myself fall sideways as my vision slid away from me.

* * *

Though I had not been having too much fun in the final minutes of my own fight, I was rather remorseful when I woke about not being able to watch the remainder of my team's fights. Especially since I didn't know who had won. I assumed that, since I was able to defeat two (even though one was narrowly) of the other team, my own would easily beat them, but I didn't think that the ones I'd fought had been the stronger ones on the team. 

I opened my eyes a few moments after consciousness returned to me, as they had not automatically done so on their own, and I sat up; a bit too fast, since my vision blurred for a moment and my back stung and reminded me why I had passed out.

Contrary to what I'd assumed, I wasn't in the hotel room. My surroundings looked more like a locker room, and I was positioned on a fairly uncomfortable bench, but at least it was thicker than most locker room benches, which I guessed was because of the possibly large demons who would use them, and there was no way I could fall off. To what I saw, I was alone, and facing a wall rather than a door. This changed quickly, though; as soon as I registered where I was, I heard footsteps behind me and turned to meet the brown eyes of the spirit detective.

"Hey, you're up!" He didn't seem to gather that this was stating the obvious, and then his cheerful demeanor changed into surprising worry. Surprising only because he didn't trust me, and when one doesn't trust another, they normally don't like them, either. "Are you okay?"

I stared at him flatly. "Yusuke, I was just stabbed in the back with a machete. What do you think?"

"…That's a yes?"

"…Yeah, I'm fine." I flexed my arms and shoulders, then turned around and leaned onto my legs, continuing, "So, why am I here?"

"Y'mean here and not the hotel?"

"No, Yusuke, I mean here and not Ningenkai," I growled back.

He didn't catch the sarcasm. "Why the hell would you be there? Well, anyway, the refs refused to stop the round so we could take you back to the hotel, but they agreed to let Kuwabara take you in here, and then—"

"Kuwabara?" I said contemptuously. "Why did _he_ carry me?"

"Well, I was thinking Hiei would probably do it, but I guess he figured you were okay. He was pretty pissed, though, so he fought next to get it out of his system."

_Pissed? Why?_ "So I'm guessing we won? You don't seem too bothered, so we must have."

Yusuke grinned, arrogant as ever. "Of course we won! How could we loose?"

"Yeah, silly me, stupid question." I cracked my neck sideways and glared up at the detective out of habit, surprised to see him give a suppressed shudder that I tended to see when Hiei glared at someone. "What was _that_?" I asked, not bothering to explain what 'that' was.

"Your eyes get all creepy whenever you…well, I'm not sure why they do, but they do."

"My eyes?" I blinked, and by Yusuke's expression, my 'creepy' eyes had returned to normal.

"You know, going cattish and weird."

"…Right." Apparently I didn't have to be in my full demon form for my eyes to revert. "So where are Hiei and Kurama?"

"And Kuwabara?" Yusuke added accusingly. I shrugged. "Kurama's gone off to get bandages for you, since, like I said, the damned committee refused to let us leave the arena completely until our round was over. As to Hiei, I dunno. He left with Kurama. And Kuwabara got caught up with some demon who insulted him, so…yeah. I'm the only one around right now."

"Joy," I drawled coldly, sighing and resisting perfectly an automatic wince at the movement of my back. "When is Kurama getting back?"

"Well, jeez, am I that horrible to be around?"

Yusuke had a quirky grin when he was teasing someone that occasionally worked on me. Just because he didn't have that I-don't-trust-you-and-I'm-watching-you-so-keep-an-eye-on-your-back look in his eyes, this was one of those times. I couldn't help but give a small smile back. "Yes," I replied in the same teasing voice, though I gave it a cheesily-demonic flourish to it, "I loathe even _looking_ at you, inferior human pest."

The detective's grin never faltered.

Kuwabara came in some time later; Kurama followed soon after, giving the same old 'I'm glad to see you awake' crap. Through this ten-to-fifteen minute span, Hiei was no where to be seen, which in a way disappointed me, and in another way, in the back part of my mind that I refused to openly acknowledge, made me wary. I noticed with a held-back sigh that I was the only one on my team that was injured.

Just as Kurama began to administer a weird bandage-patch on my broken nose, my thoughts were ripped away. In the familiar feeling that matched when I saw the human accuse me of killing someone named 'Rex', and when I had seen Hiei stab me, I recognized what had yet to be proven as a vision beginning. Spike, Zerathus, Asakari and the two male shadowcats I had never learned the name of were outside, speaking with Nirvana. _Strange_, I thought, as I watched nearby in a form that I had learned no one could see. _Why are_ they _talking to Nirvana?_ My question wasn't answered, but as Spike grinned at Nirvana for some reason, and began to extend his hand, Zerathus shoved Spike out of the way just as Nirvana shot energy out at where Spike had been and sent the shadowcat now in that position flying. To my astonishment, rather than smirk at Spike triumphantly, Nirvana's smirk was aimed at me. _She can see me?_ I wondered, amazed. _Maybe this_ is _a dream._

I was suddenly back in the locker room, but because I saw another version of myself, I knew that the 'vision' wasn't over. Kurama was in the middle of saying, '_Are you alright?_' Zerathus crashed through the ceiling right as Yusuke said, though I could not see who to, '_Yeah, you zoned out there for a second_.' The shadowcat landed roughly on Yusuke, and the two of them rammed into the wall I had been facing when I had woken after the fight, opposite the doorway. Hiei appeared from no where, flickering into view, and raising his eyebrows at the two forms on the floor. '_What was that about?_' he asked uninterestedly.

As soon as the last word was off his tongue, I woke to hear Kurama say, "Are you alright?"

Yusuke began to form the word 'yeah,' but I interrupted him. "Yusuke, come here," I said in a 'don't ask, just do it now' tone. He looked at me funny, but walked over toward me…

…Right as Zerathus crashed through the ceiling. He slammed into the same wall I'd seen him hit before, though he now lacked Yusuke to drag along with him, and as his unconscious form fell still, Hiei randomly appeared nearby. "What was that about?"

I felt myself slowly start to shake my head, more out of wonder than anything, a weird panic rising in me. If this vision really _was_ a vision, and so were the others…

…Was Hiei really going to kill me? Just like he had killed Chichiro? I still didn't know why he had killed her, but he had known her far longer, and he had loved her. So why should I be off limits to kill?

I forced myself to push the thoughts from my mind and stand; I headed for Zerathus, but he gained consciousness long before he should have been able to, struggling to his feet. He shoved away the hand I had extended to flip his body over and see if he was alright, as he obviously was, then he gathered his composure, dusted himself off, and walked out of the room without a single comment.

"That was interesting," I commented in a much weaker tone than I had intended, so the snide nature of it was lost.

Yusuke didn't notice my tone, or my words, but he was staring at me. "Did you know that was gonna happen?"

"She probably sensed him coming, you fool," Hiei growled, in what would have been a reasonable assumption at any other time. Frankly, I was amazed that Yusuke picked up the fact that I had a premonition faster than Hiei.

"I guess, but she looked all out-of-it like Chichiro used to," Yusuke replied; at the sound of Chichiro's name, the detective winced, but he hadn't stopped his sentence, being that it was already nearly done. He still looked at Hiei warily, but the fire demon didn't seem affected at all by the mention.

"Well, Hiei wasn't here for that," Kurama pointed out. I picked up on the subtlest pause between 'was' and the end of the word 'wasn't'. He had been planning on saying where Hiei had been but covered it up.

…Why the hell was everyone acting so fucking suspiciously?.! It was just _begging_ me to believe Nirvana, which I _really_ didn't want to do. "That aside," I finally gathered myself enough to say, "why would Nirvana try and attack Spike?"

"I'm sorry?" Kurama said with a clueless look, and I recalled the quite-obvious fact that none of them knew why Zerathus had crash-landed here.

"Uh, well, in my…vision, Nirvana was talking to Spike and the others, and he tried to shake her hand, but then Zerathus pushed him out of the way and Nirvana shot energy at him." I left out the fact that she had been able to make eye contact with me.

"Strange." That had been Kurama.

I felt overwhelmed suddenly by the closeness of everyone, and the fact that one of my visions had actually proven itself to be true, and I stood on wobbly legs that protested openly that I wasn't allowed to use them yet. I did so anyway.

"Where are you going?" Yusuke asked, sounding dumbfounded. "Like you said before, you were just freakin' stabbed in the back!"

"Yeah, get your butt back here!" Kuwabara added.

I felt my eye twitched, but I didn't afford either of them so much as a glance. "It's not the worst I've had," I muttered back, and walked out of the room, my walk accompanied by the tiniest limp from my ankle injury.

As I walked down an unfamiliar hall and reached the outside, I heard Hiei's voice mirror Yusuke's question of, "Where are you going?"

Out of what was quickly becoming habit, I checked his eye color when I looked sideways. "Nirvana," I identified automatically when I met slightly-brown orbs. "What do you want?"

"Your vision came true, didn't it?" He, rather she, sounded self-pleased. That tone still sounded odd when used with Hiei's voice.

Ignoring her question, I posed one of my own: "Why the hell are you transformed again?"

"Well, I wonder. After what you saw in your vision, you're actually _asking_ why I'm hiding my form from the shadowcats?" After a brief pause she morphed into Kurama, walking to follow me toward the forest. "Not to say I can't beat them," she continued, now using the fox's lighter tone. "The shadowcats are as weak compared to me as you are."

"What are you, a puppy?" I mumbled at her.

I heard her steps slow for only the slightest of moments before she continued to follow me. "Come now, is it against the rules to be concerned for your welfare?"

"Coming from you, yeah. And I don't care that Spike and the others are probably after you—change back already." Nirvana's version of Kurama's voice seemed even more out of place than her version of Hiei's—she had clearly had more practice mimicking Hiei than she had Kurama.

"As you wish," came Hiei's voice.

I restrained a growl. "I mean to _your_ form."

"You didn't specify," she pouted; just because it was Hiei's voice, it came off as unbearably cute. But after I reminded myself that I was talking to Nirvana and not Hiei, I quickly forgot how cute it was and was annoyed once more.

"Quit. Following me."

"I only want a few answers. Yeesh."

"Go bother someone else," I spat vehemently, and amazingly, she listened.

I hadn't really paid attention to where I was going; I was somewhere in the forest, but it was farther from the hotel than the part I was usually in.

"Care to spar?"

It was Hiei's voice. Hiei's _real_ voice. I could tell the difference easily by now. I drew his sword, only to block the one he swung at me; I recognized my own hilt in his hands, and figured he must have grabbed it from the arena. "Not really, to be honest," I told him as I blocked another slash; I confirmed my voice recognition by the fact that his eyes were actually red. "I'm tired."

With speed I could only hope to ever had, he somehow swapped our swords and was able to attack me at the same speed as if he had only paused to hear what I said and nothing more. "Care to spar?" he repeated persistently with a smirk as our swords shoved against one another. I submitted to the fact that no matter how long I carried out the argument, I'd be sparring anyway, so it was no use resisting. He probably saw this as a good opportunity to train me—I was injured, a bit disoriented from my being tired, and disoriented as well from the mild astonishment at my vision proving to be reality.

Our fight led us back toward the hotel; every once and a while I would break off and head toward it, until Hiei cut me off, in hopes that I could at least try and make a run for it, though it was only an amusing hope and I knew I couldn't, and get back to the room before Hiei could catch me.

I found myself incredibly wary of him; I didn't face him like he was who he was—I faced him like he was an enemy. I had always fought him in a different manner than I had other fighters; I had gotten over my leniency issue finally, but I still hadn't fought him like a normal opponent. Now I was.

It took him a while to notice the subtle changes; I could see it in his eyes when he did, but he didn't respond to them until he was able to knock me to the ground as he generally tended to be able to do. He pulled up, studying me, then lowered his sword. "Are you afraid of me?" he asked bluntly.

I forced myself to speak in a level voice. "Pssht, of course not. Don't flatter yourself."

He narrowed his eyes at me. "Don't bullshit me," he growled back without any gentleness. "What happened?"

"Nothing," I insisted, but I knew it was a feeble argument. I sucked at being able to hide things from him.

"Tell me." He wasn't asking or requesting—he was commanding.

I resigned myself to the realization that his command was unlike any other's—it _always_ worked. "I…think I had another vision." After considering how that sounded, I added, "And not about Zerathus. I mean…about us. Me an' you."

He raised his eyebrows. "What about us?"

I tried to sheath my sword, but then realized I had Hiei's sheath strapped to my belt and not mine. Fumbling to untie it, I handed it to him and simply set me sword on the ground; I'd find the scabbard later. "Well…I just…" I trailed off and gave an overly-dramatic, emphasized sigh. "Can't you just read my mind or something? I'll show you what I saw so I don't have to explain it."

Of course he was fine with the idea, but after I opened my memory of it he was silent for a long while. It made me nervous, but when he finally opened his eyes and looked at me I felt rather ashamed of the nervousness. "You went to _Nirvana_ for advice?"

…I guess I had opened more than just the vision to his jagan. "Yeah," I mumbled, looking away from his almost disbelieving look.

"Why the hell would you do that?"

"Well, have _you_ ever had a vision?" It came out rougher than I had intended, and I quickly mumbled, "Sorry. I just…"

"You were scared," he finished. Boy, he sounded pissed. I think I dreaded his anger more than I did the possible vision.

"You can't blame me for that," I spat back accusingly. "Or maybe you can, Grand Hiei Jaganshi. I'm sorry I was afraid of you after I saw you _impale_ me with your freakin' _sword_!"

I regretted my words immediately when I met his eyes. He still sounded angry when he spoke back, but his eyes were…hurt, I guess is the best word. I'd never seen that expression on his face; I'd heard something similar in his voice after I had used the Black Dragon Wave and said I didn't think he cared about me, but I'd never seen it. "How could you ever believe I'd do something like that?" he shouted back at me. "Everything sentimental aside, we have an alliance!"

"And your 'honor code' keeps you from killing people you form alliances with?" I couldn't help myself, now—it was the pure, instinctual, jack-ass nature of mine that resembled Yusuke's that made me argue with him. "And I suppose that you didn't have an honor code back when you killed Chichiro!"

He leaned back, as if recoiling from my words; it was the tiniest bit, and I barely even caught it myself, but I thought for a moment I'd gone too far. Instead of retaliating, he just growled back, "Do not touch upon subjects you do not understand," in a low, warning tone. If I had been wary of him before, I think I was almost honestly scared of him now. It felt like back when he first began training me, when my trust was shaky, and I easily feared him when he attacked me to teach me concentration.

"Well, so_rry._" Fear always made me fight better. Verbally, at least. This was no exception. "It isn't my fault that no one has the fucking decency to tell me why you _killed_ the woman you loved, Hiei!"

We had been louder than I thought, so I assume, because Yusuke, Kurama and Kuwabara showed up just as I finished. The small audience didn't interfere, and just watched from a safe distance. Neither Hiei nor I bothered to turn to look at them.

"You wouldn't understand what happened!" Hiei snarled back. "Hate to say it, but I doubt I'm the right one to tell you—you probably wouldn't comprehend a word I said."

"Oh, real mature—heading back to picking on me? Cheap way to win an argument!"

"And you're no better," he pointed out, his voice still raised, but being that both of us were running out of things to shout, our words were becoming less rough even though we were at the peak of our anger with one another.

I decided to pay attention to what I said when Yusuke muttered to Kurama, "What language are they speaking? I can't understand what they're saying, and it sounds like it's one helluva bitch fight with how loud they're shouting."

"You're a _jerk_, you know that?" I wasn't sure what language I was using, but as Yusuke had pointed out indirectly, it wasn't one I knew. Maybe it was because I was the one saying it, but I perceived what I said nonetheless. That theory flew out the window when Hiei replied using the same, unfamiliar tongue and I knew what he had said, like I had an automatic translator in my mind.

"And this is getting no where. So why don't we quit the petty insults?"

I gave a final fierce glare at him, but I knew I agreed—I hated the feeling of fighting with him. "You're just saying that because we have an audience," I mumbled at him in a low tone, and Kurama chuckled. Obviously he could understand this language.

"Audience?" Hiei repeated in an attempted innocent way, and turned to them.

The act almost made me forget how pissed off I was with him, but then I realized that the entire fight had been pretty pointless anyway and that I shouldn't be mad at him. With a sigh, I followed his eyes to the group before us.

"Uh…Is it safe to ask what the hell that just was?" Yusuke spoke first.

"A fight," Hiei answered flatly, no longer using the language he had been speaking to me, as if Yusuke had actually meant the question in the exact manner it had been asked. Now that I was paying attention to languages, though, I picked up on the fact that he wasn't using English with Yusuke.

"What language are you speaking?" I piped up, trying to keep my voice level and without anger as I spoke to him, making sure it was English that I used.

"Japanese. Does it matter?"

"How the hell do I understand—no, how the hell do I _speak_ all of these languages? I only know English and whatever amount of Spanish I could pay attention to!"

"You said you wanted to know Demon and Japanese, so I did the best I had the patience to do."

"Which is?" I persisted.

"You know the languages because I do," he explained, seeming to think that helped with my incomprehension.

"And?"

"I can't explain it in a way that you wouldn't be angered by," he told me in an unenthusiastic voice. "Let's just say this: I transferred the ability to speak Japanese and one variation of demon to your mind using my jagan. Think of our minds like computers, where files can be copied and transferred."

"Why didn't you just say that?" I muttered at him, then finally registered the 'let's just say this' as saying that he hadn't actually done that, just something similar.

"I do speak English, you know," Yusuke pointed out in what sounded like an annoyed voice; if I concentrated, I picked up the hints of the Japanese language. It was the oddest thing—I wasn't translating the words into English in my mind, or anything, but they were as familiar to me as my 'native' language, so it felt like I didn't have to translate them at all.

"Whatever," I muttered, turning back to Hiei, addressing him. "How many languages _do_ you know?"

"Enough to make your brain implode from the effort. Why?"

"Hhmph. Whatever." I gave a light sigh. "Can we go back to the hotel, now?" I asked.

"Me an' Kuwabara are headin' back, er, _were_ headin' back," Yusuke put in.

"I suppose I should head back, as well," Kurama agreed with a nod. It was darkening out. "Will you be coming, Hiei?" the fox asked.

Hiei shook his head. "I can't stand that place," he muttered, and disappeared from sight.

And for the first time in a long while, I felt no need to follow.

* * *

**Authoress's Note:** You know, I thought I was going to despise writing this chapter and the next ones with Ketsue facing her demons (excuse the pun) about Hiei and her vision, and them fighting and such, but it was actually strangely refreshing. …Okay, awkward word for that, but I guess it's the closest I can find. Don't expect things to return to normal between Hiei and Ketsue in the next couple of chapters—there's more fighting to come yet. 


	25. Immobilized

**Authoress's Note:** Okay, I know this is an evil place for me to decide to die, but if I decide not to write anymore for a while…don't hurt me. And don't be surprised. I really need to concentrate on re-writing Voices of the Lost Realm (And besides, I'm rather bored with fanfiction writing at the moment. It'll pass…always does.), but because I was begged so nicely to continue, I'll give you one more chapter. Aaand here it is.

**Disclaimer:** Neither Hiei, nor Yu-Yu-Hakusho is mine.

**Claimer:** Chichiro and Ketsue are mine, Kaze is BritKit, Aria is FoxWitch. While not all the characters are mine, all writing, storylines and concepts in this fanfiction (Save any YYH references) are.

* * *

_I'm frightened by what I see_

_But somehow I know that there's much more to come._

I had never thought that night when Hiei first showed up how far into the non-human world he would take me. I never dreamed that a couple of months after first singing 'Whisper' to him at my window with Kaze as thanks for killing some supposedly already-dead walking-corpse, that I would be fighting those same corpses, who were for some reason trying to kill me. I never fathomed that I would be in this tournament.

And I definitely didn't think that now, after everything I'd done for him and everything he'd done for me, that after all we'd been through and all he'd shown me, that I would fear Hiei. I certainly wouldn't have guessed, lying in my bed with my thoughts full of the fact that my favorite fictional character in the word wasn't fictional, that months later, I'd honestly believe that Hiei was going to kill me.

_Immobilized by my fear_

_And soon to be blinded by tears_

How odd a thought, as I laid in the dark of the hotel room resisting the tears that threatened to spill, that I, 'innocent' Hi-chan, Chichiro, Rachel, whoever I was best known as that relatively-short, seemingly-long time ago, had now killed a human, that I was now fighting to survive every day, that I hadn't seen my friends (At least not my 'normal' friends) in weeks, I hadn't seen my family in days…and that I was fine with it all. At least I had been up until now. Until I had begun to have visions—until I had _that_ vision—I had choked back any emotion that wasn't positive toward the happenings. I guess sometimes, in the beginning, I had lost my cool, but I eventually re-gathered it. But now…it was all too overwhelming. And I had begun to see that.

Was Hiei really going to kill me? I knew, in the back of my mind—that corner that I hated to acknowledge for its treacherous, untrusting thoughts—that I thought he would. I guess it wasn't even a thought. It was a _knowledge._ I _knew_ Hiei would kill me. I wasn't sure why, but…I couldn't deny my beliefs anymore.

Did this mean I didn't trust him? Before, I had said that I wouldn't have been surprised if Hiei had killed me that day he threatened to…that I would still trust him anyway. I hadn't trusted him not to kill me, no. I trusted him to be Hiei, and that he had a reason for everything he did.

My trust seemed to have changed. I now trusted him the way that a human would foolishly trust someone—that the person they trusted wouldn't kill or hurt them, that they would protect them. Well, I guess I _had_ trusted him that way for a while. But when did this change happen? I had thought I was becoming more demonic, not beginning to act like a human again, all the while sinking back into mimicking that species that I hated and for some reason protected at the same time.

But no matter how many times I tried, I couldn't shift my trust back to the way it had been. I couldn't even regain that human trust. I didn't think I trusted Hiei anymore; if I did, it was a lousy amount. Why? Did this mean I _did_ trust Nirvana? It sure as hell seemed safe to say that. I felt safer around her than I did around him, now. When was the last time I'd been wary of Nirvana? And when had I last _not_ been wary of Hiei?

I stifled a small sniffle and stood from my place on the couch, walking into the bathroom and glad for my night vision. I didn't have to turn on the lights and possibly wake Kurama (Or Yusuke, as he seemed to have very good ears. Kuwabara…I had little to no worries about him.) as I closed the door and tried to calm myself. I didn't have to _cry_ about this.

_Because the knowledge that the person you love the most and used to trust the most is going to kill you is nothing to cry about,_ said a dry, sarcastic voice in my mind, egging on my sorrows.

_Chichiro._ My mind hissed her name like a profanity.

_What? I'm not welcome to chat with you today, hikari-dearest?_

_Since when have you_ ever _been welcome, witch?_

_Point taken. Your bravery has improved…I can't think of you ever actually taking a stand against me, much less daring to use an insult. Not to say it was a very_ good _insult, but it was one nonetheless._

_What do you want?_ I groaned telepathically, annoyed. Her distraction had sufficed to cease my incessant sniffling, and I dropped the Kleenex I had grabbed into the trash can, allowing my yami to continue speaking only because she was being useful to kill off my self-pity.

_To survive._

_Since when?_ I accused. _You're more emo than I am about everything; you always say you want to be nothing, and you want to die, and you want_ me _to die as well. So why the change of pace?_

_Because if you do decide to survive, it means you'll have to kill Him._

I definitely didn't need to ask who 'him' was. Her answer was good enough for me, and when I asked no more questions, she quieted and seemed to go dormant in my mind again. Speaking of dormancy, Aletta had been rather…non-responsive as of late. I figured she was probably dormant as well.

Even though my mind now lacked Chichiro's annoying commenting, it was far from quiet. I wasn't going to sleep that night. After I realized this, I stood again, snagging my hoodie from my bag, and slipped out of the hotel room as silently (Luckily I was already no longer limping, so it was easier to be quiet than I thought.) as possible as not to alert Kurama to my absence, though I fancied as I tried to close the door quietly that I could sense a pair of calculating green eyes studying me from the darkness.

I relaxed immediately once I got outside. Almost all of the lights of the hotel were off by now, excluding the lobby, a few rooms and the hotel sign on the front of the building; the darkness was not unwelcome. I noticed that the room Yusuke and Kuwabara were in was lit—were they still up? Crazy humans. (I knew Yusuke wasn't human, but it still felt much more natural to call him one rather than to call him a demon.)

I could pick up a few faint demon energies from various directions around the island; as well, I could sense where Hiei was, and an energy almost identical to him—Nirvana. Far off, much farther than I had even thought the size of this island would support, I could also sense Spike and the other shadowcats.

I enjoyed the chill of the air for a short while before yanking on my hoodie, shivering once, and heading toward the forest.

The spirit cuffs had been much easier to get used to than I had originally thought. As I walked, it was automatic to strengthen my energy when extending my leg and weaken it to draw the ankle cuff back, then strengthen it again as my other leg crossed in front. My wrists no longer felt like incredibly strong magnets every time they neared one another, and it was much easier to have my hands feel natural in my hoodie pockets again, not having to struggle to keep them there.

My feet led me away from the path, toward an energy; every time I tried to shift myself away from heading toward the demon energy, I only ended up veering back. Because of this, even though I _really_ didn't want to see anyone right then, I finally gave up and went toward whoever it was.

I didn't pay much attention to it at first, but when I neared the signal, I realized it was changing rapidly—strengthening, weakening, and then changing form or type, like the person was shifting species. Or people. I sighed—I could easily guess who it was. Somehow that made me wonder if my direction really had been random in the first place. It wouldn't surprise me if the ram demoness could draw people to her with her energy.

Suddenly, a familiar, short, black-cloaked shape dropped in front of me. I stiffened. "Hiei?" I had to squint through the dark to be able to make out the steady glare he gave me, but even in the dark I could see the tiniest flaws in the way he glared. I relaxed. "Nirvana," I breathed, sighing.

…Wait. I relaxed when I realized it _wasn't_ Hiei? What was wrong with me? "What do you want?" I asked finally.

"What do _I_ want?" Nirvana asked through Hiei's voice. It sounded relatively like Hiei, in a snide, 'What the hell are you talking about?' voice; Nirvana would have simply 'purred' the response and would have somehow been amused, not addressed it like a normal person in annoyed confusion. Obviously she was trying again to perfect her transformation, in this case her voice imitation. "You're the one who sought me out. I should ask the same question."

"Nice try," I muttered. "You sound a bit like him. Not quite. But I know who you are and it only sounds weird to hear you being halfway normal, so quit it."

He smirked, then shifted in a split second, his shape twisting upward and reforming into the taller Nirvana. "I knew that you realized it was me. Why else would you say my name?" she replied with a grin. "I was just seeking feedback."

"And you got it," I reminded her flatly. "Now answer my question honestly."

"I did. You _did_ seek me out."

"No, I followed the signal because I felt like I had to. I've had my body charmed before—I know what it feels like." The memory of the S-class demon plunging its spiked foot into my immobile body played across my mind, but only served to remind me that Hiei might do something similar in the next few days.

It must have showed on my face what I was thinking, because Nirvana said, in what I assume was an attempted sympathetic tone, "You believe me now, do you? My offer still stands—join me and we can kill him to save you."

I glared at her coldly. "It doesn't matter what I think or believe or know he's going to do to me. I won't kill him. I never could, and certainly not to save myself."

The ram demoness heaved a large sigh. "So loyal," she breathed out as she finished her sigh, like someone performing on a stage. "How depressing."

"Shut it."

She feigned surprise. "Why, with cruel words like that, one must wonder why you came to see me."

I felt my eye twitch, and I saw amusement flicker in her dark chocolate eyes. "We've been over this. _You_ brought _me_ here. Tell me what you want."

Her ears, which I had just noticed were pointed like a mix between an elf and a shadowcat (Shadowcats ears are pointed like a Tolkein elf's from the Lord of the Ring movies, though in a more exaggerated point rather than an almost round one; hers wasn't quite as exaggerated.), twitched, and her head flew sideways, her hair swishing as it turned; she looked almost like a frightened animal ensnared in a bear trap when it hears the hunter coming to skin it alive, but she managed to keep her cool. "Some other time, I'm afraid," she said quickly, leaping sideways and flickering from my view.

I watched her go with narrowed eyes, not amused by her antics, and I began to sigh before it locked in my chest as I heard a familiar voice say, "Yusuke was amazingly correct. You and her are rather friendly with one another now, aren't you?" from behind me. I turned and locked eyes with Hiei, finding myself much calmer than I had been before; his look, voice and eyes were correct—this was actually Hiei.

"I suppose you could say we don't leap at each others throats at any chance," I replied, "but I'd hardly say we're friendly." I paused. "Well, at least I'm not. She somehow finds a way to be friendly with everyone, in a creepy 'Give me your soul' kind of way."

Hiei snickered quietly, and for some reason, as I felt myself relax entirely and sink back into trusting him again in an instant, I felt as though I hadn't seen him in months. I had to keep myself from hugging him; instead, I gave him a steady glare. "What's that look for?" he asked flatly. "I didn't even insult you yet."

I held back a grin. "That was a bit Yusuke-like, don't you think?" I shrugged as I continued, "And as to you second question, I'm glaring because you let me be a complete jerk before."

"Oh, I let you, did I?"

"Yes," was my flat response. "You should have told me I was being a moron about my 'vision'." It had been a spontaneous reaction, just to seeing him when I wasn't fighting him, to trust him again. I guess my faith in him had to be shattered in a much more severe way for me to stop trusting him for an extended period of time—now I just felt weird about how 'friendly' (Though I still wouldn't have admitted it to Hiei that I had been) I had been with Nirvana. I felt almost like a manic depressant—spontaneous mood-swing and trust-shift, anyone?

"Why would I?" His voice broke my thoughts. "You realized it fine on your own. All I had to do was wait."

"I never saw you as the patient type," I said with a playfully suspicious look.

"I'm not. I was just too pissed off with you to try and counsel you nicely."

I smirked. "So you just ignored the issue completely?"

"Exactly. I knew you'd come around eventually, and here we are."

"Hmmph."

I was about to find a comfortable place to sit, and hopefully catch some shut-eye, but Hiei's words again disturbed my thought. "Now that you've returned to yourself, we should pick up where we left off."

I blinked. "And where was that?"

"Our spar."

I realized when my trust level dropped and my paranoia reawakened within me that my trust really would be like manic mood swings for a while; the simple thought of fighting Hiei made me think again that my vision hadn't been nonsense.

Again, it must have showed. "Don't tell me in that short of a time you believe in your 'vision' again," Hiei accused, sounding more irritated than hurt.

My halfway-nice glance turned to a glare quickly. "I'm a little messed up right now, alright? Get off my back about it. Jeez."

"But I'm correct, aren't I? You're thinking of that as a 'vision', not a dream."

"And you think of it as a dream?" I responded in an equally as accusing way. "I don't care what you say or how little sense it makes." I steeled myself for the next words—admitting something like this to Hiei wasn't a light act. He was bound to get angrier than he probably already way; somehow I knew he was only half-serious. I found it hard to believe that he took it so lightly that I thought he would kill me. "That _was_ a vision," I finished, struggling to keep my eyes from darting away from his gaze.

…From the gaze that quickly became about as angry as I thought it would, which was nothing short of down right frightening. "What the hell do you mean by that?" he growled. "Need I reiterate? We have an alliance. I wouldn't dream of doing that to you!"

"'Cept right now," I mumbled sarcastically; he did look like he wanted to wring my neck for the comment, even though that wouldn't have made much sense to do, with what he was defending. His dangerous glare swiftly reminded me not to joke about it. "Well, what do you want me to believe?" I finally said defensively. "You didn't see it happen! I mean, you did…but you didn't have the vision." I cut off, growling. "Damn it! That didn't make sense. But it did in my mind…if you knew what I meant you'd get why it's so hard for me to just act like what I saw was nothing like you." Hiei looked almost like he took offense to that, but I didn't let him interject and continued. "I'm not sure about you, but it isn't every day that I casually dream about the person I love killing me in cold blood." I ignored the blush rising at how easily I said 'the person I love', but luckily for me, Hiei ignored it.

Instead, he replied in a raised (but not quite shouting) voice, "That doesn't mean it was a vision! You're not exactly the last person I'd assume to have fucked up dreams."

"What does _that_ mean!"

Hiei's left eye twitched the tiniest bit, which I would have found funny if I hadn't been arguing with him. Instead of retaliating with a cover-up or a blunt 'you heard me' or something similar, he simply suggested, "Why don't we both take this out the way we want to?"

"And how is that?" I asked in a low tone, willing to try anything to get out my anger.

"On each other."

"Excuse me?"

"Sparring, fool. You never answered before."

I considered, then shrugged. "Alright. Let's go."

As I sprang through the trees, swapping punches and kicks with Hiei, I felt myself relaxing again. Not by much, but enough.

"You hold back against me."

I looked up to block a kick as Hiei spoke, and I blinked. "Not anymore."

"No, you still do. Maybe you aren't aware of it." He paused to x-block a punch from me, swinging his leg around at my unguarded ribs on the left side of my body, and I thrust out my right arm to block that, unprepared when he dipped his left arm from his x-block and hit me in my ribs, throwing me back. I somersaulted clumsily backward a few times, barely able to listen to Hiei as he finished what he had been saying. "You don't fight me like you would any other demon. You don't fight to kill."

"Neither do you," I spat back and I picked myself up, getting into an offensive stance before leaping at him, attacking with a flurry of punches. "Hypocrite."

"But I know when to fight to kill. You don't seem to."

"What the hell do you mean by that?" I didn't care if his meaning was obvious.

"If you tried to kill me, I'd easily respond the same way. Without mercy, aiming to kill. I can't say you'd afford me the same."

"Are you saying you'd _want_ me to try and kill you back?" I wasn't sure why he was bringing this up. He didn't believe in my vision, and even if he did, why would be warn me to fight back?

"I'm saying I want you to use common sense." He knocked my feet from beneath me, but I shot energy out at him and managed to regain footing and spring for him again, shooting out several energy kunais. "If the rounds go as they should, we'll be fighting Spike's team in the semi-finals." Ah, finally, it made sense to me. "I know you may consider Spike, or perhaps even a few of his comrades, to be 'friends', but you cannot hold back because of that. This is the dark tournament. Fight to kill; don't protect them from yourself. They will show you no mercy."

I wasn't sure about Zerathus and the others, but even though I didn't know him too well, it made me sick to think about killing Spike. "I can't kill him!" I cried, knowing Hiei would know I meant Spike and not one of his teammates.

"And you may not have to." I found myself knocked to the ground again, but I rolled out of the way before Hiei's newly-drawn sword could piece me. I gathered myself rapidly into a crouch, trying to knock Hiei's feet from beneath him in the same way be had me, but he just jumped up and landed behind me, swinging his blade at me. "But if it comes down to a life-or-death battle, would you really die to keep yourself from having to kill Spike?"

I considered it. Yeah, I probably would. But I could never admit that to Hiei. "Why are you saying this now? Save it for the sidelines, O Cheerleader of Doom."

Hiei ignored his new nickname as best he could, and replied, "Because you must think this way throughout the entire rest of the tournament, not just when you fight Spike's team. Even now."

"Now?" I blinked, leaping back from his blade, which he sheathed. "Against you? Don't be stupid."

"And you're saying this after you insisted that you weren't showing me leniency?" he muttered at me.

"I wasn't insisting," I said in a low tone, then, not serious at all, at least not for the second half, "You shouldn't be telling me to fight to kill around you, after that whole vision thing. I might just take your offer."

He didn't seem to note the first half as a joke, or note the second half at all. "That again? Get it through your skull—something like that could never happen."

Immediately I found myself getting pissed with him again, but before I could fight back verbally (I was doing rather well fighting back against him in our spar; at least, I was evading his attacks well. He wasn't giving me much opportunity anymore for offense of my own.), he switched thought train.

"Think with your body. Stop thinking with your mind!"

"With my body, huh?" I gritted my teeth against the rising anger. "If I thought with my body, I'd stop thinking of holding back, on any level." I found myself more willing than I would have expected to listen to him. My attacks were quickening, and I could feel my thoughts hardening, growing colder… "I'd fight to kill you."

He blocked my punches without ever moving his eyes from mine. Finally, he closed his crimson orbs and said quietly, "If that's what it takes." He flipped backward. "I'm supposed to kill you, right?" he mocked, obviously trying to annoy me. He drew his sword again and pointed it out at me. "So defend yourself. Kill me first."

My eyes widened, then narrowed. "As you wish," I hissed. "Just remember, you asked for it." Then I lunged.

I weaved around his sword, aiming to punch his throat, but his sword came sideways with a swiftness I didn't even think Hiei could manage, knocking me out of my intended path and to the ground, a new sword slash across my left side. As quickly as he'd brought the sword to the side, he was next to me, sword raised; I would have rolled to my right (left was out of the question—that would have just brought me closer to Hiei), had I not been pinned next to a tree. I could only hope that Hiei saw that I couldn't get out of this one before he stabbed me, as he always did, managing to barely wound me while avoiding serious injury. Still, I couldn't help the automatic, dreading flinch.

Not even a minor pain came—I looked up, thinking to find Hiei glaring at me and about to tell me to stop being weak or something to the like, or that he'd just begin again with his attacks, but instead I saw the hilt of his sword pinned to the tree by a sai; the crisscross fabric on the hilt was pierced and stuck into the trunk. I blinked, confused, but before I could ask, I heard a familiar, accusing voice shout over at Hiei.

"You could have killed her!"

Hiei looked like a bristling cat at Spike's remark, but then I recalled that Hiei hated cats and decided not to use that simile again. "Don't be ridiculous! I wouldn't have gone that far."

"Oh no? What about Chichiro?"

I drew in a small breath; even I knew Spike had gone too far with that one. I almost warned Spike to start running then.

I risked a look at Hiei, who was glaring at Spike with such a murderous look that I think any lesser a being, namely myself, would have died from the sheer force of it. "You know _damn_ well what happened," Hiei snarled. "It had nothing to do with holding back."

"My mistake," Spike purred back with a smirk; I was still amazed that he wasn't trembling in his boots.

"What do you want, cat?" Hiei finally asked in an even tone, but his eyes were still welcoming Spike to chuck himself into the flames of hell. Honestly, under that glare, I think the flames of hell would look rather welcoming.

"Well, I _had_ been looking for Ketsueki, but how fortunate that I came across you as well!" Spike's grin looked so cheerful that I almost didn't catch the sarcasm of his words. "But if you wouldn't mind, I'd like a word or two with her alone."

Hiei didn't even ask me if it was okay with me this time. Instead he antagonized the concept immediately. "Why's that?"

"If I ask for a private chat, obviously I won't tell you." Spike was next to me in an instant, his arm hung over my shoulder lazily; Hiei seemed to've sensed his movement, because as the cat settled into the new position the fire demon was already facing us. "Private matters deserve private settings, don't they, Ketsueki?"

I twitched, about to tell Spike that this new form of 'flirting' was going too far, but Hiei did so for me. In a much less friendly way. "Back off, cat, or I'll sever your skull before you can try and make excuses as to what you meant by that."

"Aww, jealous? How tragic." The shadowcat smirked toothily. "Very well, I'll leave it for another time."

As he began to move his arm off my shoulders to walk away, I snagged his wrist. "Wait."

He blinked over at me like I had, rather than saying 'Wait', said 'Come hither'. "What is it?"

"Why were you talking to Nirvana before? And what was with the failed handshake?"

Spike seemed confused a moment, and then he grinned. "See? This is why I find you so charming, Ketsueki. You know things without me even having to alert you to them!" Now Hiei seemed interested, as well, and his attention was riveted on the shadowcat's face. "Well, you see, I had the mind to have a sort of false truce with Nirvana against you and the rest of your team—" Unlike in Z'chor, he was speaking to me and not Hiei, which made me glad; it had pissed me off in his world how I had asked questions and he had addressed Hiei about them. "—but she somehow saw through my brilliant acting skills and tried to attack me. Of course, Zer deflected the attack, but nonetheless my plan didn't work."

"Christ," Hiei muttered, sounding quite unenthused, "you're just like Suzuka."

I glanced over at Hiei, releasing Spike's wrist. "Suzuka? Who the hell's that?"

"Just a clown," Hiei muttered flatly, and didn't allow me to further question it. "Spike, why were you trying to trick Nirvana into a false alliance?"

"Personal gain; you know the deal." He gave a light wave. "Talk with you hopefully soon, Ketsueki." He disappeared from view without me even being able to see which direction he had headed.

"Weird," I mumbled. "He's one seriously _weird_ guy."

"Personal gain?" Hiei muttered, more to himself than for my benefit, and he turned away, walking toward the part of the forest I was familiar with.

"Hey, where are you going?" I called after him. "I thought we were sparring!"

"I obviously won," he replied, "and I'm going back to get some rest before the semi-finals. You won't meet up with Spike or Nirvana again tonight, so it would be pointless for you to stay here; unless, of course, you'd like to be killed. If not, I suggest you come along."

I took the unexpected invitation and went after Hiei, forcing back any fear or distrust I had of him.

* * *

When I woke up I felt less than energetic. Actually, I hadn't felt this worn out and weak in a while; not a very long while, maybe back directly after the S-class demon's attack. Shifting around after a moment of laying perfectly still, I found my body stiff and my muscles flimsy; my back was sore, as well, from lying on a branch against a tree trunk all night. I had a headache to add to my various aches from yesterday's fights, and the thoughts about my vision. Not a good way to start my day.

On the (very dim)bright side, I didn't automatically suspect Hiei of soon-to-come treachery like yesterday; it took me a few minutes to get back into that way of thinking.

Without exchanging words, Hiei and I decided to go back to the hotel. The entire way there, my legs felt like rubber, and my head was swimming. It didn't improve when we got upstairs (Speaking of stairs, those were hell to get up. Luckily Hiei didn't feel the need to wait for me and didn't notice my weakness.).

I flopped down on the couch in the room, next to Kuwabara, as the other couch was occupied by Kurama and Yusuke already (Hiei was on the windowsill. Normally I'd join him, but the couch was more comfortable and seemed more welcoming.), feeling as air-headed as I did after using a large attack. And we all know that my after-attack air-headed ways made me either sentimental or affectionate; either way, I felt very comfortable being friendly around everyone that morning, and for once that included Kuwabara, who I proceeded to lean onto with my eyes closed and my head on his shoulder.

I barely noticed Yusuke's snickering, or how stiff Kuwabara got in his confusion, but I did hear what Kurama said when he spoke up, sounding almost put-off by my random change-of-heart on Kuwabara's likeability. "Are you alright, Ketsue?"

"Meh? What do you mean?" I didn't open my eyes or move as I responded; Kuwabara had relaxed, but the slight movement of his shoulder under my head signaled that he still wasn't sure how to position himself to accommodate me and was fidgeting.

"Well…" Even the ever-fluent Kurama seemed at a loss of a way to explain his bewilderment without being rude.

"Since when did you get friendly?" Yusuke finally put in. "I mean, you're usually not even nice to me or Kuwabara, and now you're acting like you two are dating or something." He was still snickering under his breath, and it barely showed through his words.

"Fuck off," I mumbled without moving to defend myself by smacking Yusuke or leaning off Kuwabara. "I'm not acting like that at all. I'm just…tired."

"Riiight. I guess your friendliness only changed toward Kuwabara, huh?"

"Screw you." My voice openly advertised my weakness, and I could feel the eyes of all three of the guys on the couches on me; by my senses, Hiei seemed rather disinterested with the whole thing and wasn't paying attention.

"As…_interesting_ as this is, you never answered my question," Kurama spoke up after a short silence.

"You mean the 'are you alright' thing? I already said I was tired. Calm down."

The conversation left focus on me, and my own focus drifted away from the conversation. After a few moments of my zoning, I faintly heard, "What about you, Ketsue?"

Blinking, I looked over at Kurama. "Sorry, what? I wasn't paying attention."

"So I figured. I asked if you were going to come with the rest of us. We're going to go watch the finalizing battles of the second round, and then Nirvana's fight in the first half of the semi-finals. Will you be joining us?"

"Oh, yeah, sure." I nodded with a light grin, and Kurama eyed me for a moment before following Yusuke. I realized I was still leaned onto Kuwabara, and I pushed off him gently and sat up, watching him stand and go to join the other two and Hiei by the door. I began to stand, but my legs failed, and I dropped down onto my knees, my vision failing as well.

"Ketsue? Ketsue!"

When I finally was able to concentrate on Kurama's voice, I gathered by his tone that he'd repeated my name several times before. "Huh?" I blinked at him, struggling to keep my gaze centered on him; he was supporting my back, and I was in a sitting position.

"Ketsue, when was the last time you ate something?"

"Uh, yesterday. The croissant, you remember. And then the other croissant." I hadn't thought in my air-headedness to specify what 'the other croissant' was, but Kurama gathered that I meant the day before yesterday.

"And before that?"

I squinted as I tried to recall, then grinned weakly. "Uh, don't know." Now that Kurama mentioned it, I honestly couldn't think of the last time I'd eaten before the croissant. I guess I hadn't really stopped to think of it—my demon body never felt hungry, so I'd never thought to eat anything unless it was presented like the croissant. That still didn't answer why it had taken my body so long to become weak from lack of nourishment.

"I thought she looked scrawnier than usual," Yusuke commented bluntly.

I glared over at him, but being that I was currently on the ground and hardly able to even focus, I doubted he took it very seriously.

"Well, you all go on ahead. I'll take her to get something to eat." As always when my welfare came into question, the fox was subtly glaring at Hiei while he spoke, like he expected the fire demon to baby-sit me all of the time. I found it rather amusing, to be honest.

"You sure?" Kuwabara asked. "I mean, the whole watching-the-fights thing was your idea. I can take 'er to get something if you wanna go to the stadium."

_Arena_, I corrected in my mind, but I figured that I'd be ignored if I said it out loud and decided not to.

"No, it's fine," Kurama assured him. "We'll join up with you later."

A few various 'okay's, 'see you there's and 'hn's went around before the three other guys left me and Kurama alone. "If you're wondering," the fox said as he helped me back onto the couch, "the reason you're only just now noticing how weak you are is because you've been in your demon form for so long. I'm sure normally you revert back to your human form once and a while, but being that you haven't done that lately, your energy hasn't had a chance to re-charge, per se, so you need food."

I grinned at him sheepishly. "Yeah, I'm not really sure how I forgot that."

He smiled back lightly. "Don't worry about it. I'll go get you something from the buffet downstairs—do you have any preference?"

"Kurama, I have about as much brain-power as when I'm drunk. I really couldn't care less."

He snickered softly, then nodded and stood to leave, saying, "I'll be back in a moment," over his shoulder.

…_I forgot to eat. Wow, good job, there, Ketsue,_ I thought to myself. Really, I hadn't figured it would be so easy for me to forget something that essential, but being that I rarely stopped fighting, I guess it wasn't as odd as it could have been.

The reference I made to this seeming the same as being drunk came into play again when time seemed to pass differently; it felt like Kurama had just left when he came back. "Ooo," I said with a grin as I took the plate, "a whatchamacallit!" I didn't bother correcting myself, and I thanked him and took the glass he offered me as well.

"Danish," he offered.

"Yeah, that," I agreed lamely. "Thanks, again." I hadn't had a Danish in a long while; that didn't mean I didn't love them, of course, and which made me scarf it rather quickly. I then sniffed the glass. "What's this?"

"Your senses really aren't working very well, are they?" he asked me, though he sounded amused. "It's orange juice."

I grinned. "Of course. I knew that."

After I chugged the entire glass, Kurama waited a moment before asking, "Are you ready to go?"

I nodded. "Yup!" I stood, still feeling woozy, but I figured my body needed time to register the fact that I had finally fed it.

After I'd followed Kurama down the stairs (He had to catch me once or twice, though. It still amazed me how quickly my weakness had taken over—I had run fine for over a mile to get back to the hotel that morning. Maybe that's what finally set it off.), I explained that I still wanted to have a bit more, and I headed to the breakfast buffet. 'Course the only reason I remembered where it was happened to be because there were convenient signs throughout the hallway, but that was unimportant.

I grabbed the first meat sandwich I could find and another bottle of orange juice, glancing over at the only other two demons around (I guessed that the reasoning behind how deserted the hotel seemed was because everyone else was watching the round in the arena.) before I left. The first was a tall woman, with short, boyish hair, wearing Arabian-style pants and a high-collared, no-sleeve shirt. Next to her was a huge…bear? If it wasn't a bear, then it resembled one extremely closely. I had been under-exaggerating when I said huge—it was gigantic. Much bigger than any bear I could imagine from the human realm; it had light fur and a few armor plates on various parts of its body. Blinking a single time and wondering if I'd have to fight them, I headed back out into the hallway and out of the hotel.

Watching fights, while it was more interesting in this tournament than Ningenkai, seemed like a boring idea to me at the moment, and I went outside and sat at the edge of the woods against a tree trunk to eat rather than going to the arena to meet everyone like I had planned.

"Ketsueki! What a pleasantly-desired coincidence!"

I looked up and blinked at Spike, lowering the orange juice bottle from my lips. "Uh, hey, Spike. Why aren't you watching the fights?"

"Boredom. And I should ask you the same thing—the rest of your team and your demon are there watching them."

I twitched, but didn't mention the 'your demon' thing—that just seemed to egg people on to continue if I mentioned how annoying it was. "I don't feel like watching people fight right now; I've had my fair-share of that lately."

He nodded in understanding, walking over and sitting next to me on the side of the tree, our backs (had they touched each other and not the tree) forming a right angle.

I ignored how…disconcerting (Not to say I disliked it, but it still was a bit weird.) that was, and finished the sandwich before asking, "So what did you want to talk about before?"

"Huh?" He glanced over his shoulder with a clueless look, but the simple meeting of our eyes seemed to spark memory within him. "Ah, yes! Sorry, I've been feeling a bit out of it today." _You're not the only one_, I thought with an unintentional nod. "I wanted to tell you that I look forward to fighting you. Or at least having my team fight yours, I can't say that we will indefinitely battle one another."

I quirked an eyebrow. "That's all?" I asked, then realized it sounded rude and quickly continued, "I mean, you could have said that in front of Hiei."

"Yes, yes I could have." He grinned. "But I wasn't done yet."

"Oh…sor—"

"No need for apologies." He stood and offered his hand to me, which I examined suspiciously for a moment before taking it; he helped me up with a yank, then declared in a theatric tone, "We should go for a walk!" as if he had just solved the mystery to world peace and was announcing it to the world.

I couldn't help but snicker at how strange he was, and I shrugged. "Okay."

"So, who would you like to fight in the semi-finals?"

I glanced over at Spike as I walked next to him without turning my head. "Well, your team, of course." I wasn't sure if I believed that or not, but I hardly thought Spike would react any better than Hiei if I admitted I wasn't willing to fight to kill against him.

He grinned toothily. "Nah, I mean _who_ on my team do you want to fight?"

I still wasn't sure why everyone was so positive that Spike's team and mine would clash in the semi-finals, but I figured they would probably know better than me what to expect at the Dark Tournament. "Oh, uh…I don't know." I gave a sheepish smile, looking at my feet. I hadn't felt this self-conscious in a while. I mentally smacked myself, guessing that I was probably acting like I had a kid-crush on him. "I guess we'll just have to see how it all plays out."

I realized he was watching me very closely, and I glanced up at him. "What?"

"You don't have to act so serious," he replied with an easy smirk. "I'm not all stiff and cold like your demon, you know."

I blinked, raising my eyebrows. "Well, yeah, I knew you were kind of…er…_goofy_, but I…Well, this is how I always am. I'm not acting."

"Nah, you just got used to being this way," he told me in a correcting voice, putting a hand on my shoulder and shaking it lightly. "Loosen up! Jeez, you're like a female version of Hiei!"

I grinned lightly, trying not to act uncomfortable at all of the random attention. "Well, that's weird. You always act like you don't like Hiei."

"'Don't like Hiei'?" Spike quoted innocently. "Whatever do you mean by that?"

I just shook my head and smiled at him. "Never mind."

"Always so mysterious," he said, sounding serious, but his eyes were playful, and he leaned onto me, stopping me in my tracks and allowing himself to fall almost completely limp across my shoulders with a sigh. "One must wonder why we aren't mates yet," he mumbled in a feigned forlorn way.

I attempted to glare at him, but the fact that his face was so close to mine and that I found him charming in a really irritating way made me unable to. So I simply narrowed my eyes at him and feigned a glare, about to tell him to get off me…

…When he pressed his lips against mine. My eyes widened, but as quickly as contact had been made he disappeared from my sight, much like Hiei (though the thought of Hiei kissing me was incredibly odd), and I was left standing stock-still with my arms still pressed against my chest. I blinked once, then whispered, "fuck," repeating it louder directly afterward and letting my legs slide from beneath me.

"Well, that's a surprise. I had really pinned you to liking Hiei, but our opponent? _Damn_."

I cringed automatically at Yusuke's voice. If he told _anyone_…Well… "If you tell _anyone_," I snarled at him, standing and whirling to face the detective, "I will strip the flesh from your bones."

"Ooo…scary."

"…After telling Kayko that you cheated on her."

"…Say what? I never cheated on Kayko."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "Kayko doesn't know that."

"…Aww, crap." He glared at me, shifting his lips to the side in a sort-of pout, then he sighed. "Fine, ruin my fun. I won't tell anyone. But why the hell are you screwin' around with our enemy?"

"I'm not…'screwing around' with Spike!" I snarled, having had to've gather myself before even trying to say 'screwing around'. I was still rather numb to the concept that Spike had just kissed me.

"Oh, _sure_. Whatever you say."

I resisted glaring at him, breathing out slowly and calming my anger and surprise before attempting to speak normally. "So what are you doing here, anyway? I thought you were watching the fights."

"Well, yeah, but the round was stopped for some stupid reason and what's-her-face-redhead was fighting with one of the team."

"…What's-her-face redhead?"

"Yeah, the announcer girl."

"Suurii," I offered flatly.

"Yeah, that."

Shaking my head, I turned to walk back toward the arena. "Let's go see if the round started again, then," I muttered. "It must have taken you at least five minutes to get here, and there's no telling how long you were stalking Spike and I, so I'm sure Suurii's done fighting with whoever she was fighting with by now."

I heard Yusuke say 'alright' behind me, and we both treaded to the arena.

When we arrived, I asked Yusuke where everyone else was, and he directed me around the upper ground ring, above all of the seating (it connected to all of the staircases that went to the seats) and pointed as we walked toward one of the various other doorways from the outside; I caught sight of Hiei, Kurama and Kuwabara, and I jogged over to them, hearing Yusuke follow me. "What'd we miss?" I asked, to no one in specific, when I got there.

"Not much," Kuwabara answered; I looked over at him, halfway surprised—normally he let Kurama or Hiei handle answering my questions and ignored them or commented only when he had an annoying comment to crack. I guess it was because of how…'nice' I'd been that morning; thinking of that only made me think of Spike and what had happen, and I resisted a blush. "The ref had been arguing with that team over somethin' for a while. No one seems to know what's goin' on, either."

"So, anyway," I said after a brief silence, not at all serious when I spoke, "I'm not feeling as malnourished as before, so none of you have to worry about my emaciation thanks to Hiei anymore."

Hiei either didn't realize I was teasing him, or he was easily offended that day, but whatever the case, he automatically snapped back, "It isn't my responsibility to make sure that you know how keep yourself alive; you have to learn to take care of yourself once and a while." Without further comment, he turned and walked away, through the door that led back out of the stadium.

I raised my eyebrows in surprise. "What's with him today?" I mumbled quietly, though no one on my team seemed to catch it.

"You don't have to let him boss you around like that," Yusuke muttered. _As if you actually care_, I thought. _And Hiei wasn't bossing me around, he was just being honest. Jeez._ Why was everyone antagonizing Hiei so much lately anyway? I had found it amusing when it involved Kurama, but only because it seemed that Kurama and Hiei had something quite like a sibling rivalry; with everyone else, it was just weird. I had suspicions that Nirvana hadn't limited herself to trying to poison my mind about my 'vision'. Perhaps she'd discussed the whole thing with everyone else, as well. Not to say everyone was exactly antagonizing Hiei about _everything_, only when it involved me, but they had never seemed to care about me following him without question before now. "Genkai told me somethin' a while back that seemed kinda stupid at the time, but I guess it fits now. Somethin' like 'No one can make you feel inferior without your permission' or somethin' like that."

I faintly heard him mumble something about how he never got why she told _him_ of all people, but I ignored it and felt myself growing angry at the statement. It wasn't like I was a wounded puppy—I could take care of myself. And I chose to let Hiei 'boss me around', so why the hell should anyone else care? "Then I willingly give my permission," I barked back roughly. "You, on the other hand, are not so lucky. So _back off_!"

Yusuke leaned backward at my growled response, looking confused. "Well, jeez, I wasn't trying to offend you or anything. I'm just saying—"

"Drop it, Yusuke," Kurama said quietly, giving the detective a look that said 'If you value your health, you'll stop now' (Of course this look wasn't a threat from Kurama…he was referring to _me_ being the one who would threaten Yusuke.).

I gave Kurama a grateful look, then shifted my gaze to the center ring as Suurii began announcing again.

"Alright, now that it's _clear_ that the Somahnki Team _lost_—" By her tone, it was obvious what they had been fighting about—sore losers. "—we can move on with the next round."

"As you all should know," Koto took up where Suurii had left off, "the next battle is the first half of the semi-finals. Whoever wins this will advance to the final round of the Dark Tournament!"

Various cheers went around as Nirvana walked into the ring; moments after, the woman and bear that I had seen in buffet area walked onto the ring as well. There were a few moments of what seemed like silence, though I could faintly hear the woman and Nirvana discussing something, and then Suurii said, "Alright! It has been decided that only a single fight will take place in this round, and whoever wins this will advance!"

I perked a brow, wondering why the hell anyone would risk the entire round on one fight, but unlike as I had expected, no other fighters entered the ring. It was only going to be Nirvana, the woman and the bear-like creature.

I bored myself very quickly watching the fight; to be honest, the only reason I had told Yusuke I wanted to go watch it had been to shut him up about Spike.

It only took a few minutes for me to begin watching again, though; when the crowd erupted into eardrum-bursting shouts (though I couldn't tell if they were positive or negative), I looked up from where I had zoned off back to the ring. The woman was leaned over the bear, which seemed to be bleeding rather badly, and Nirvana had her arm extended and smoking—it looked like she'd just attacked. "And the Y'aghsk Team concedes! Team Nirvana is the winner!"

I really didn't know how everyone pronounced things in demon—the name of that team seemed rather ridiculous to me to even consider _trying_ to say, but Suurii said it without issue. "What happened?" I asked. "I wasn't paying attention."

"Nirvana pulled a cheapo move and targeted the bear," Yusuke explained, sounding rather pissed off. "It made whoever she's fighting give in so that she could make sure Nirvana didn't kill the thing."

"Goody." I realized my trust had changed yet again, and looking down at Nirvana, I only felt the usual extreme dislike. Speaking of change in trust, I didn't see Hiei anywhere. "Hiei's still not back?"

"Nope. Maybe you should go find him."

Something about Yusuke's tone pissed me off. Quite a bit. But being that I couldn't tell exactly what, I didn't comment about it and shrugged. "I guess so." I leaned off of the wall of the doorway and went back outside; I had confidence that our fight would not start for at least a short while—whoever ran the tournament never seemed prepared to start the next round when fights ended as quickly as the last one did.

I passed Hiei on my way to the stairs that led out of the arena, but I hadn't really gone to look for him—I just wanted to find something to do before our fight started. I gave a short wave when I passed him, but didn't look to see if he returned it, my eyes focused on the door; I could feel his own following me as I left.

I passed the bear on my aimless walk; it was laid against a tree, its eyes closed; it didn't appear like it noticed the large gash on its side where its armor had been, nor did it look like it was in pain. I could tell by the swivel of its ears when I approached that it was conscious, though. Feeling slightly foolish, I said, "Are you a demon?"

"You won't get a spoken answer from Aghskari." I looked up to find a tall woman heading toward me. "At least not in a language you would understand." I backed off as she walked to the bear, which I guess was named Aghskari—the name having been said in the same language Hiei had used to pronounce 'Mahdaegrah', which I couldn't hope to pronounce—with bandages in her hands. She sat down next to it and began to apply them in silence.

"Sorry, didn't know." I recognized the woman immediately. "Hey, you're the one who fought Nirvana, aren't you?"

"Unfortunately," she seethed in response.

"Well, I'm sure you would have won if you hadn't had to stop to save your…er…friend," I offered. I wasn't sure if I should say 'pet' or 'friend', so I settled on the second, figuring it would be much better for her to correct me on that one than on me calling her friend a pet. Luckily I chose right and there was no correction.

"Yes, that is true. I may have been able to beat that witch had she not deliberately struck out against only Aghskari, but that is how the round played, and though I believe it to be a dirty trick, it was not cheating. It is just lucky for both me and Aghsk that Nirvana allowed me to forfeit."

"Yeah." I wasn't sure of what to say, being that she didn't offer any form of continuance, and finally I asked, "So is…what's her name?"

"Aghskari," the woman repeated. "She'll allow you to call her Aghsk when you know her better, but I doubt that would be a good idea now, even with her injured."

I decided I didn't want to know what she meant. "So is Aghskari—" I said her name slowly, to make sure I had it correct, and I was not corrected, so I assume I said it right. "—a demon?"

"She's a bear. What else does she look like to you?"

"Well…I've never seen a bear so big. So I thought…maybe she was a demon."

I felt the woman's criticizing, copper-and-green eyes studying me, sizing me up. "You aren't from around here, are you? The demon realm, I should say, as Aghshk and I aren't from around here, either."

"No," I agreed, "I'm not." Was it really that obvious? Was it my question about the bear or how I acted? "Not to say I'm not demon, of course," I added quickly.

"Of course not." Her facial expression hadn't changed, but she was clearly amused. "I _can_ sense your energy, you know. I'm not stupid."

"I…I didn't say you were! I just—"

"It's alright," she told me with a small smile, standing. "I'm Y'seeka." Again, the strange pronunciation that was accompanied by clicks and voice changes that I didn't understand how I could ever imitate. She was definitely a demon; if she _was_ human, she certainly wasn't from the human realm.

"I'm Ketsue." I extended my hand, but she only looked at it oddly, then extended her own; of course, being that she didn't seem to understand the gesture, she only pointed it out at me in the same manner I had to her, and didn't take my hand. She then withdrew it, turning to Aghskari. "I'm afraid we must go, now," she told me, though she was facing the bear positioned on the ground, who now opened her eyes; they were yellow-gold, and piecing like a wolf's. I'd never seen a bear with eyes like that, especially not with irises so large—that I could think of, bear eyes looked almost completely black, but Aghskari's eyes had smaller pupils that made her seem more human. Or demon. It stood slowly, walking to follow Y'seeka, who called over her shoulder, "Good luck in your fight."

"Nice meeting you," I commented, giving them both a slight nod, almost glad to get away from the conversation. Not to say I disliked them at all, but it had been too…serious. I guess I had listened to Spike after all.

"Are you done?" I looked over at Hiei as he spoke again, walking toward me, continuing in a sarcastic tone, "Not that the Dark Tournament isn't the _perfect_ place to make friends, but we do have a round to get to."

"Yeah, sorry." I wasn't sure about his sarcasm—to me, this _was_ a pretty good place to make friends. At least ones of my species. I was much more willing to be outgoing around demons and other non-humans than I was with humans.

Hiei waited until I had reached him to turn around again and walk back in stride with me to the arena, where Spike's team waited to clash with mine (I was done doubting what everyone had said from the start—it seemed impossible for us not to fight them now, since they were the only team who had not yet gone in the semi-finals besides my team.). I was really not looking forward to this. If Hiei expected me to kill them…jeez. I didn't even want to think about it.

When we arrived on the floor outside the ring, a loud cheer went up from the stands. It seemed they didn't have the same antagonizing feelings toward my team any longer; I guess they didn't care _who_ fought now, as long as they got to see blood shed.

I met eyes with Spike over the stone center ring, and he grinned lightly at me. I could feel Yusuke's eyes on me as well, and he was no doubt wearing a similar, hinting grin to Spike's, though for a different reason. On top of that, Hiei, who hadn't so conveniently been witness to what Spike did like Yusuke, was also looking at me, probably wondering what my problem was. Flustered, I looked to my shoes instead, finding them to be incredibly interesting.

"All right, team captains to the center ring to decide the terms!"

"Decide the terms?" I asked softly. "We've never had to do that."

"This is the semi-finals," Hiei said, as if it had been obvious. "It's different this time."

"Well…who's our team captain?" No one on my team moved—all eyes were on me. "Me! You've got to be bullshitting me!" Still, no one moved, but Hiei was clearly enjoying how easily flustered I was right then—I could see a smirk twitching at his lips. "I'm not the team captain! You guys're stronger _and_ more experienced!"

"So?" Hiei cut into my little defiant 'speech' before it really took off. "The team was named after you. Why should this be any different?"

I knew Hiei probably didn't actually think I was team captain-material. That was probably exactly why he was egging on the concept so positively. "You _jerk_," I hissed, softly enough that no one else on my team or the other could hear but Hiei; I was positive he would know what I meant, and he didn't question it, only smirking back. "Well…I say Hiei should be team captain," I decided, pointing at him in an almost accusing way. "And if I'm team captain now…well…I can pass it on to someone else, can't I?"

"Hiei?" Yusuke quoted. "He'd just tell the other team that the terms were for him to face them all at once."

"…Good point." I considered it a moment while Hiei glared at Yusuke, then shifted my extended arm to point at Kurama. "Fox-boy, then," I said, restraining a grin at the look Kurama gave me for his new nickname. Still no one moved. "Uhh…Yusuke?"

The detective grinned. "Hey, I'm all for tha—"

"Someone help us all if _he's_ ever captain again," Hiei growled, killing off that idea.

I looked to Kuwabara, my last hope, but didn't even suggest it; team leader material, maybe, but no one would go for it, and it would be the perfect opportunity to tease him simply by not even mentioning him as a possibility.

"Team Ketsueki, please send out your team captain!" Suurii called over impatiently, though from closer than I would have thought. I looked up to find her standing near me at the edge of the ring a few feet off.

Sighing heavily, I glared at my team a single time before turning and pulling myself onto the ring, walking to the center to face Spike.

"So, what shall we decide upon, then?" he asked, his toothy grin returning. "One-to-one? Battle royale? One fight decides it all, like the last round?"

"I wouldn't like to bet everything on one fight," I replied. "How about best out of five—first to three wins."

Spike seemed almost disappointed, but he shrugged. "Alright, sure. Works for me."

"Alright, it's been decided—first team to three points advances!" Suurii told the stands, and Koto repeated it into a microphone that didn't amplify sound, I assume for a radio show or something. "Let the matches between Team Ketsueki and Team Kurayami begin!"

* * *

**Authoress's Note:** If you remember correctly, you may be wondering why Team Ketsueki only fought twice before the semi-finals—in the anime, Yusuke's team fought three times before the semi-finals. But in the Dark Tournament saga, the tournament committee _really_ had it out for Yusuke's team, and thus they made Team Urameshi fight multiple times in a row to weigh the odds against 'em. But, the tournament committee thing always really annoyed me, so I chose to keep them out of the storyline, at least mostly. So no extra fights for you guys. So if you don't like reading fight scenes as much as the plot, then I am 'Teh awesome', as my friend Terri (The Schizophreni Trio on fanfiction-dot-net) likes to say. If you do like fight scenes…well…Too bad. (X3)

Also, if you're wondering why I spent so much time on a seemingly insignificant character duo (Aghskari and Y'seeka), they'll probably be making an appearance again in later chapters. I'm not sure yet.

Second 'Also', sorry to Song of a Fallen Angel to not explaining the vision yet. Wait for two or three more chapters and everything will be explained/resolved.


	26. Loyalties of a Shadowcat

**Authoress's Note:** I have returned, finally! …Not that anyone cares, but meh. I was going to have some long, drawn out excuse/reason as to why this chapter took so long, but I figured that I already warned everyone that I wouldn't be continuing it for a while, and it wouldn't matter anyway. So I'll just say that I'm sorry I took so long, and here's the chapter.

**Disclaimer:** Neither Hiei, nor Yu-Yu-Hakusho is mine.

**Claimer:** Chichiro and Ketsue are mine, Kaze is BritKit, Aria is FoxWitch. While not all the characters are mine, all writing, storylines and concepts in this fanfiction (Save any YYH references) are (This includes Nirvana, Spike, all shadowcats, the shadowcat species, all of the opponents of the Dark Tournament this time around, Suurii, etcetera.).

* * *

"_Alright, it's been decided—first team to three points advances! Let the matches between Team Ketsueki and Team Kurayami begin!"_

I looked to my team as I walked back from the ring to see who would step forward first; Yusuke and Kuwabara both seemed most enthusiastic about going. I had no objection, and neither Hiei nor Kurama looked to have any serious drive to get out and fight. I knew the two humans were only waiting to see which of them would dive forward first, and then they'd duke it out over who would get to go.

Averting my gaze sideways to the other team, it seemed that all but Spike and Zerathus wanted to fight, but as well, none of them made the move to enter the ring.

"Both teams, please send out your competitors!" Of course that was Suurii; by her voice, she didn't really expect either of our teams to send anyone just yet.

I focused back on my team. "Alright, who's going? Kuwabara? Yusuke?"

The two looked at me oddly, like I'd said something strange by only suggesting them, but then they immediately forgot about the apparent strangeness and began to bicker amongst themselves.

"Team Ketsueki, please present your combatants!"

By the singled out request, Spike's team had already sent theirs; sure enough, a shadowcat was standing on the ring. It was the black-haired male from Z'chor, who Hiei had said he almost considered a friend. Spike, Asakari, Zerathus and the tall, silver-haired male who I thought was probably Skyre all stood on the sidelines, none of them looking disappointed by the choice as I knew one of my team would be after the fighter was chosen. I measured up the size, and decided Yusuke should take this one; I would fight Zerathus, Asakari or Spike, and Kurama and Hiei could fill in with the two I did not fight. That left Skyre and Kuwabara. Come to think of it, with Skyre size, Yusuke should probably take him; I figured the detective was stronger than Kuwabara, and by size Skyre should be stronger than this guy on the ring.

"Kuwabara should go," I said, interrupting the argument next to me.

"Say what?" Yusuke objected, but Kuwabara grinned and said, "Heh, thank you!" in a self-pleased kind of way, more thanking me for the 'faith' in his strength than for choosing him for the fight.

"Yusuke, you should take Skyre." I didn't point to alert the humans as to who Skyre was, since I figured shadowcats would be more easily offended by pointing than humans; I still didn't know their 'code', but I had done a few apparently odd or insulting things when I had been in Z'chor, so I decided not to risk angering them, especially not over something as small as pointing.

"Oh, _sure_ you don't want to be team captain," Yusuke muttered.

Recognizing his sarcasm, I growled back, "Fuck you," responding only to keep him busy to make sure he didn't notice Kuwabara getting onto the ring. I figured if the fight could start, Yusuke wouldn't complain, but if it didn't start before he noticed, the two would keep on fighting. "I'm only doing this because you all suck at choosing and I'm sick of it."

"Yeah, but are you paying attention to how much energy this guy's putting out?" Yusuke countered. "He's much stronger than Kuwabara."

"And I assume you'll want to take them all?" I muttered back. "Besides, I think Skyre is stronger than this guy. You should take on the stronger one, don't you think?"

"Let the match between Kent and Kuwabara begin!"

Yusuke swore under his breath, then turned back to me. "All I was saying is that if it's best three-out-of-five, then we shouldn't even have Kuwabara fight at all."

I raised my eyebrows. I hadn't really considered that anyone but me would think that way, especially not Kuwabara's best friend. "Well, there's nothing we can do about it now. He's already started."

Yusuke grumbled an agreement, facing the ring to watch Kuwabara summon his spirit sword.

At the announcement, Kent had taken a chain and sickle from its place strapped to his belt, which was hidden behind a high-necked trench coat much like Spike's, though his was black. He brandished the weapon by holding the end of the chain, which I assumed had a handle (but I couldn't see through his hand, obviously, so if it did it must have been a very small handle), and holding the blade loosely in his other hand, the chain taunt. "Your move, human," he invited monotonously; I noticed that his voice had a very thick accent, one that sounded familiar, but that I couldn't place. Scottish, maybe? _A Scottish accent on a shadowcat who isn't even from the world Scotland is in?_ I mused. _What an odd concept._

Kuwabara raised his sword, his eyes sweeping from the blade at the end of Kent's chain to the shadowcat's face, and in his glare I could see more calculation and concentration than I ever would have thought I'd see from someone as strategy-lacking as Kuwabara. Actually, now that I looked closely at him, Kuwabara was a lot older than he was in the anime. I had thought that he was in his twenties, and never really registered it, but now as I saw him run at Kent and swing his blade with what could almost be seen as precision, I realized that though he looked in his late twenties at oldest, he was probably in his thirties. Or maybe even older, considering all the factors that would make him older than he was in the anime. How strange that I hadn't even noticed that before, and even stranger that he didn't even look thirty; in fact, it seemed ridiculous to assume that he was older than thirty even by one year, but by my calculations, he should have been well into his thirties.

I glanced sideways at Yusuke; the same could be said for him, though just because of his height (I'm not sure why, but Kuwabara's height somehow made him seem older even though he was no longer a teenager; with teenagers it's easy to see how easily height can make someone seem older) and the fact that he seemed rather laid-back at the moment, he seemed a bit younger than Kuwabara. Doing the math of the shadowcat war that had been mentioned, his age when the anime stopped, the years that I had calculated for how long Chichiro had been in the lives of everyone from Yu-Yu-Hakusho and my own age, Yusuke should have been in his late thirties. Scary thought.

Then I considered—if that was true, how was Kurama twenty-three? He couldn't have been. I glanced over at him with my eyes narrowed; he sure as hell looked twenty-three. Like I said, I had before thought he looked eighteen, and twenty-three seemed a stretch in itself. And as I also said, Yusuke and Kuwabara didn't look like they were even in their thirties yet, either, or for Yusuke even past twenty-five. _What the hell?_

I was brought back to reality by a sound of pain from Kuwabara; half-surprised by actually caring, my eyes focused back on the battle. Kent's sickle was imbedded in Kuwabara's upper arm, and as he ripped it out, a spray of blood shot from it, landing in a messy line on the arena floor heading toward the shadowcat. It actually looked quite cool when I stopped paying attention to the fact that blood coming from someone I knew in reality was a bad thing; I had to wonder about when I was wounded—did it look that cool when blood sprayed from my injuries (You have to remember that I can be a very sadistic and masochistic person at times. My curiosity often brought out the worst of those two traits.)?

"Damn it, Kuwabara!" came a snide, irritated voice from next to me. Finding it obvious enough that it belonged to Hiei, I looked at the fire demon from the corner of my eyes as he continued. "We can't afford to allow you to fight that poorly! Normally I wouldn't give a damn—" I realized then that for someone who normally seemed so angry, Hiei really didn't swear that much; when he did, it was generally 'damn'_. I guess everyone has a favorite swear word_, I thought, and though it wasn't very funny, I still snickered. "—but, in case you've forgotten, this is the Dark Tournament, and our lives are—"

"I know, shorty! Get off my back!" the human shouted back, the pain in his arm seemingly (and conveniently) forgotten. Leaping upward much higher than I thought he should be able, he slashed his glowing sword at Kent once again, though the cat dodged the blow, and the concrete of the ring suffered for it; last I knew, though, concrete didn't bleed nearly as much as a person, and I was beginning to understand Hiei's frustration with Kuwabara. Still, I wasn't a perfect fighter myself, so I raised no protest against his slow attacks.

Kent's weapon swung around to slash Kuwabara's skin open on a different part of the same arm, but the human acted like he was made of steel, only barely flinching before diving for Kent again. His movement were noble in a really weird way, as he didn't seem to really care that his life was in danger as long as he won, but in his 'nobility', he was being careless; it impressed me to see someone handle pain so easily, even though I could do relatively well at the same thing at this point, since Hiei really never got injured, so I never saw anyone have the need to react or not react to pain. Even through this, however, recalling what Hiei had told me what seemed like a very long time ago, having the ability to handle pain did not make Kuwabara stronger. Nor did it help him win the fight.

I didn't see this improving any time soon, so I sought my last resort to keep myself from shouting at Kuwabara or invading the ring and having our team disqualified—shameless cheerleading. It may have motivated Kuwabara, and it would allow me to shout like I wanted to, even if it would lack the profanities and 'Come on, damn it!'s that I wanted to include. "Go Kuwabara! You can do it! Show that bastard!" (I had to allow one curse in, or I'd go out of my mind.) I received rather amusing looks of disbelief in response to that, from Hiei, Yusuke and Kuwabara (Though Kuwabara's glance was fleeting thanks to his battle.). Kurama only had a small, calm smile at my encouraging, if a bit annoying, cheerleading, but the others seemed rather dumbfounded. Still, I shouted for a short while longer before I lost vigor for it and realized it wasn't helping. I lacked the blue-green hair and crimson eyes of the one he'd respond to with cheerleading, so I doubted it was any use to continue—I'd only end up loosing my voice.

The fight lasted longer than I thought, but throughout the entire thing, it only went downhill for Kuwabara. I wasn't sure whether to be pissed with myself for choosing wrongly, or to feel guilty because of the injuries Kuwabara was suffering, though none were too serious. Kent was fighting without really trying, I could see, and it was a rather sad show from our team.

I could tell what was Kent's final attack when it came, and I felt like telling Kuwabara to forfeit or to stand down, but I knew he wouldn't, and my voice may distract him in its suddenness from possibly counter-attacking, however doubtful that seemed to me. The shadowcat first struck Kuwabara's midsection with his hand, palm-out, shoving him backward windless, and with a single punch, a final slash of his sickle, and a round-house kick, Kuwabara was sent flying backward and out of the ring.

After the sound of his body crashing against the arena wall faded (And after the smoke had cleared), Suurii coughed a single time before saying, "And after ten counts, Kent is the winner by ring-out!"

The shadowcat began to turn, but at the shout of, "Hey! Get back here! I'm not done with you yet!" he looked to Kuwabara.

"The fight is over," he told the human calmly in a soft voice, his accent nearly making me grin; I loved Scottish accents. "If you wish to continue this after the official round, feel free."

"Yeah, we'll meet after this round," Kuwabara agreed, still sounding annoyed.

As he trudged, and nearly limped, back to our group, Yusuke turned to me and said, "See? I told you this wasn't a good idea!"

"And you were correct," I growled, continuing sarcastically, "And I'm sure you're so happy that out team lost and you could be right about something."

"But if you hadn't told him to go, I could have! And I would have won!"

"And you missed your chance to," I reminded him.

"Because you distracted me! If you hadn't, I would have fought, and then I would have gotten our team a point!"

"Well, then _you_ fight, jerk!" I spat, not caring that it wasn't wise to goad Yusuke on like that.

"I will!" he shot back hotly, and turned to walk toward the ring.

I sighed, feeling Hiei's 'that-was-stupid-of-you-and-you-know-it' glare on the back of my head. Yeah, I knew that had been stupid, but maybe we'd get lucky and Yusuke would be able to fight Kent if he fought again, or maybe Skyre.

Amazingly, we _were_ lucky enough for Skyre to step up onto the ring, but I figured that luck had to run out eventually, and knowing my own luck, it would be now. I decided that Yusuke probably wouldn't win, not even caring to compare the two fighters, just knowing that was how my life went, and because I had pushed Yusuke into it, he would lose.

Of course I was right. The fight didn't last long, and Skyre was much stronger than I thought—though the spirit detective was incredibly strong, he was not structured in fighting styles (still), and Skyre had not given him enough time to think up one of his ridiculous, last-minute plans. Yusuke was thrown into the wall of the arena, like Kuwabara, and as he stumbled up from the rubble just as Suurii shouted, "Ten! Another point to Team Kurayami!" a small section of the stands collapsed. He trudged over, muttering to himself about hating to lose, but he looked battered enough that I knew he would allow us to fight (amazingly).

When he got to our group, he stood next to Kuwabara, and the two of them were a striking contrast to the group of demons next to them, who didn't have a scratch. At least not a visible one—Hiei had his back injury, still (or so I would assume), and I had a few wounds of my own. Glaring over at me, he half-heartedly said, "I hate you."

"That's it." I raised my hands in mock surrender, but though the gesture was far from serious, my words were. "I'm staying out of this from now on. No more 'team captain' shit for me."

"'Team captain shit'?" Hiei quoted, raising his eyebrows the slightest bit.

"I'm not choosing who fights or egging anyone on, anymore." I looked up, not continuing as I had planned, as Asakari stepped up into the ring. I blinked. I would have thought that Spike's team would have sent out himself or Zerathus, so that they would have more of a guarantee to have this be their third win. Maybe they just wanted to prolong it, or perhaps Spike wanted to wait until he had the chance to fight me. _Then again,_ I considered, _I shouldn't have so little faith in Asakari. She's probably just as good a fighter as the rest of them._

"She's the strategist of the group," Hiei muttered to me. I was confused for a moment as to how he knew that, and then I recalled that he had fought in the shadowcat war alongside her, Spike and the others.

"So then Kurama would be perfect to fight her," I mumbled in automatic response, more to myself than anyone, but Kurama began walking toward the ring. "…Shit. Wait, Kurama, I didn't mean for you to go!"

"Don't worry." He turned to me and gave me a small smile. "I would have gone even if you hadn't suggested it."

"But…everyone I choose for a fight has been loosing," I said in protest, very close to whining.

"Because you've been choosing humans, and we all know their fighting skills are pathetic," Hiei responded.

Somehow I took that as an attempt to cheer me up for the losses, despite the obvious insult in it toward Yusuke and Kuwabara; I was probably just reading too much into it.

"Hey!" Yusuke growled. "I'm not a human, remember?"

Hiei didn't even look at Yusuke, which only fueled the detective's anger, but the fire demon next to me and I ignored him as he ranted, looking to the ring and Kurama as we waited for the fight to start.

"So far we've got two to zero for losses, the Kurayami Team obviously being the zero and in the lead," Suurii announced. "One more win, and the Kurayami Team advances."

"Yes," Koto agreed, "it's been a rather sad show from the Ketsueki Team. I don't think we've even seen the Kurayami Team finish warming up, yet! Hopefully this fight will be a bit more eventful? There haven't even been any kills yet in this round!"

As I watched Kurama and Asakari size each other up subtly, I realized I that I might be able to finally see what Kurama's demon form looked like; at that point, I wasn't aware that Kurama had decided to never again use Yoko to win a battle many years ago.

"This third match could decide it all for the final round, and who will be facing Team Nirvana! The competitors are Kurama, from Team Ketsueki, and Asakari, from Team Kurayami." Before Suurii finished, I realized that she had pronounced 'Asakari' differently than Spike had when he spoke with her; she pronounced it Ahs-kahri, not Asa-kah-ri like every one else. "Hajime!"

Before I could ask, Hiei said, "The actual pronunciation of her name is what Suurii just used, but when someone from another world or someone unfamiliar is around, it's normal for the shadowcats to slightly change pronunciation of their names."

"Uhm…Why?" I asked, narrowing my eyes at the two in the ring as neither of them even twitched an eye at the 'hajime', standing perfectly still.

"Surely you're familiar with humans from different countries changing the pronunciation of their names to assimilate themselves. It's much like that, only this assimilation is purely etiquette, not the desire to 'fit in.'"

_They have etiquette about the style their names are said…?_ I wondered, but guessed that I'd never understand their world's minor oddities.

I could hear various shouts of 'Come on!' 'Fight!' 'She said 'start', so start!' from the stands, but still, both red-heads in the center of the arena never moved. They didn't even seem to hear the impatient voices around them.

"Well, this is definitely nothing new to me—an old-fashioned stare-down," came Koto's commentary, which was steadily becoming more and more irritating to me. "Normally they don't come so soon in a fight and before any bloodshed, but I guess with these two almost perfectly-matched fighters, it was inevitable."

Then there was a loud snap, and the fraction of a second-long after-image of Kurama disappeared, and there was a small dent in the stone floor where Asakari had been seconds before. I looked up to see both of them slashing…_something_ at each other, though from this distance I couldn't tell what. They both seemed to be lashing weapons, so I assumed that Kurama's was his rose whip. It looked much like the Yu-Yu-Hakusho episode in which Kurama faced off against Ura Urashima, with only flashes of light and snapping noises when their weapons collided.

Hiei had been correct when he said that Asakari was the strategist of the bunch. After only a minute or so of whip-battling that wasn't too productive, she drew something from the pouch on the side of her pants, above where a pocket would be on jeans, and three small objects shot outward at Kurama. At first I thought they were throwing stars, but as they thumped into the ground before the fox demon as he sprang back, I could see that they were kunais. Throwing stars came next, this time in a group of four, and rather than hitting the wall behind Kurama, they whizzed around just before contact and headed for him again. I was tempted to tell him to tell him to watch out, but I guessed that would probably be an insult to his skill, and sure enough, he flipped backward, his back arching over them as the stars barely clipped the bottom of his hair.

I realized when Asakari drew the shortest sword I'd ever seen—it was roughly a foot long, maybe a tiny bit longer including the hilt—that she was not really trying to battle or kill him yet, just trying out weapons to see what worked best on him and keeping him dodging until she did so. Kurama lashed out his rose whip; I thought for a moment that he would be successful in yanking the base from her hand, but she simply drew a second short sword and cut the whip, thrusting out the sword that he had gathered his weapon around and flicking off the remaining part of the blade.

The shadowcat launched herself at Kurama, diving not for his torso as I normally did when attacking someone, but his feet. The two small swords in her hands crossed and swiped beneath him as he leapt up, but the blades were already turning in her hands to face upward, and she aimed to drive them into his legs, only giving him small slashes on the inner sides of his ankles as he dodged; it seemed by the lack of blood on his left leg that the left had only cut into his pant legs, and the smallness of the amount of blood on his right meant that she had only barely grazed him.

_Jeez,_ I thought, _he can't even get an attack in. She's a freakin' amazing fighter. I think I would've already lost._ On that same thought-train, I realized that because Kurama was holding out so well that he could have easily taken Skyre or Kent without even trying, as easily as Kent had beaten Kuwabara. Well, at least if Kent or Skyre didn't pull some amazing attack out of their sleeves and turn out to be as brilliant a fighter as the rest of the shadowcats seemed to be.

Kurama made a small 'hup!' noise as he leapt up and dodged Asakari's blades again, and they made small indents in the arena floor—small only because of how well she controlled them. I think that if she had actually tried, they wouldn't have touched at all, but perhaps she was just doing it to show their sharpness. "You're quite a skilled fighter for someone so young," he told her with a small smile. "You remind me greatly of Tamiko."

By the large grin that swept across Asakari's seemingly always expressionless face, that was a huge compliment.

_Tamiko,_ I thought, remembering uncharacteristically fast who she was. Normally it took me a while to remember that she was Kurama's mate, despite the fact that she was mentioned enough that I should be able to automatically know who people were talking about.

From next to me, Hiei muttered, "He always did have a thing for cats. I never understood it."

I blinked once, looking back to Kurama and Asakari, and they were now both smiling as they fought, and I considered that he meant that something had sparked between them in the ring, but I figured if it had, it wasn't going anywhere after they left the ring.

"What did he mean when he said 'someone so young'?" I asked Hiei as I watched them both dart across the arena, swapping attacks; it seemed that Kurama had regained the ability to make offensive moves of his own. "She looks like she's in her twenties."

"You should know that's young for a non-human," the fire demon responded. "But she isn't—she only appears that because shadowcats age much the same as demons do. I'd say she's probably in her early two-hundreds."

I stared sideways at him. "That's…young?"

"In demon years, she's not too young. But compared to Kurama she is."

"And Kurama's how old?"

"Easily at least one thousand years old, probably over two thousand."

I mustered a "wow" that was cut off as there was a loud, inhuman screech. I thought for a moment that it was Asakari, but as my gaze snapped back to the ring I found that it was a huge plant, one that resembled a Venus fly-trap gone bad, and with many heads…each of which "_has a mouth. And each mouth has saliva that will melt your bones in under a minute, but the pain will make it seem like an eternity to you._" As Yoko Kurama's line from the anime came to mind, I realized that it was a death tree. It looked _much_ cooler in reality, but also rather…eh…scary. I didn't want to get on Kurama's bad side any time soon.

One of the tree's 'heads' screamed again. They were all coiled up like rattlers and seemed to regard Asakari coldly even though they didn't have eyes, only mouthed that dripped saliva that, as Yoko had said, was able to melt pretty much anything. This included the ring floor, which suffered quite badly.

Kurama and Asakari both stood unmoving; Asakari stood in a low stance, not quite low enough to be considered a crouch, still wielding her two short swords, and Kurama was positioned in a casual position, or as casual as was possible with a huge monster plant growing around his arm and hissing like an over-sized rabid cat with several heads and lacking a loveable feline face.

"This match is over," Hiei murmured, quiet enough that I assumed it was only for my benefit and not for Yusuke and Kuwabara to hear. "He can end it now easily, whether Asakari concedes or foolishly tries to fight back."

"It's that easy?" I replied softly, trying to just speak in a lowered tone but ending up whispering instead.

"For Kurama." Something about his tone openly mocked me in saying that it would not have been so easy for me to win, and that I wouldn't have won at all. I knew this, somewhere in the back of my mind, but I had still considered that maybe I'd be able to beat her somehow; I didn't retaliate, though I badly wanted to.

"Please, be wise," Kurama said, in a low voice like Hiei and I had used, and I figured he only said it loud enough that Asakari could hear it, but my hearing was much better than most gave credit for.

"Be wise by giving up?" the she-cat asked in a low purr, and a small smirk made its way across her lips. "I don't think so."

"Very well," the fox sighed, and the death tree gladly obliged when he sent out his energy, shooting forward to meet the cat crouched on the opposite side of the ring, her stance lowered, her swords poised and ready to fight back.

It didn't register in my mind for a moment what had happened when a large, black and red cougar-like cat hurled itself across the ring and dove beneath one of the death tree's heads, clamping its powerful jaws on what would have been a throat on an animal. I then realized that Asakari was gone from her spot, and that there was a faint glow on the cat's brow over silver-red fur that formed a symbol resembling a pair of demon wings.

_She transformed?_ I wondered. It seemed a bit far into the battle to transform now, but I guessed that she would be much more inclined to use her natural form when she was fighting a far more life-threatening and rabid opponent than Kurama.

Asakari's lion-like jaws tightened at the death tree's 'throat', and with backward wrench of her head she tore out…well, something; I'm not familiar with plant anatomy, especially not with death trees from the demon plane enhanced with demon energy—I'm sure normal plants don't have a throat to tear out. The nearest branch lunged for her, but she dodged it and kicked off its head, springing to a different head farther away, shifting mid-leap back into her human-like form and slashing the head off of the branch with her whip-like weapon. Following it up with another jump to another one of the several branches, her body went through another change, back to the shadowcat form.

When I had watched the series, I really didn't think it was possible to kill a death tree unless the one controlling it decided to let it die; I certainly didn't think that if one could find a way to kill it that they would escape with only a few flesh burns and no serious injuries, which is what Asakari proceeded to do in under two minutes. When she stood, the headless branches writhing above her as the plant wilted, the left side of her face had a pretty nasty-looking burn, but it was only a flesh wound and nothing bad, and both of her arms had many injuries each as well. Several locks of her long black bangs were singed off where they hung around the left side of her face as well, revealing more of her short, spiky red hair behind them.

"Wow! I've seen Kurama's plants before, but I'm used to them killing something, not something killing them!" Of course the voice behind me belonged to Koto.

_What about Karasu?_ I thought, but didn't voice it; surprisingly, neither did Koto.

Kurama didn't seem entirely surprised, and there was a look of calm frustration on his face. Asakari's expressionless return glance made me realize that neither of them were smiling anymore, now that they were fighting honestly, and it also made me realize that the corner of the shadowcat's mouth on one side was burned the smallest bit. "Any more brilliant plans, Kurama?" she asked coolly, tonelessly and lacking any trace of arrogance.

"A few," he replied, equally as monotonously.

"As you said, please be wise," Asakari said, raising her now human-form arm and opening her hand so that her palm faced him. "You're obviously no match for me if that is all you have, and I'd rather not kill you. I'm sure Tamiko wishes the same."

Something flickered briefly in Kurama's eyes, and for a moment I thought he would honestly throw the fight; why, I wasn't sure, but again at the mention of Tamiko, the emotions in the ring were near tangible. This time, though, I didn't think it was from admiration for Tamiko, but of concern for her feelings, and I guessed Kurama knew that if he didn't fight the right way, he would be killed. However, he plucked a seed from his hair, and it sprouted and lengthened into his rose whip. "I'm afraid I cannot concede."

"Then you will die," Asakari growled, her voice rising only the slightest bit, and the tone change was barely discernable from her normal volume. Lighting fast, she reached into the pouch she'd retrieved her other weapons from and shot a few kunais toward him, though her outstretched hand sent out the familiar electrical feeling of a large energy attack, and the kunais glowed red with demon energy.

Kurama easily dodged them, but like with the throwing stars, they somehow turned like they were living and headed back for him. Unlike the throwing stars, though, they did not stop at one return round, and they whizzed closer and closer to the fox as he continuously dodged them, like a pack of circling sharks.

I briefly thought I saw something shoot through the air just before the first of the kunais hit Kurama, but being that neither of his arms were raised them I looked to him, I figured it had been my imagination. I quickly forgot that as one of the glowing kunais hit home in Kurama's lower leg; a second grazed the side of his stomach as he leapt backward to avoid the others, but I realized that it had been a bit more than a graze by the amount of blood from his wound when he continued leaping back to avoid the rest. With a single lash of his whip, the remaining kunais were slashed in half, and he stopped to crouch, still in a moveable position in case Asakari moved to attack again.

I had assumed she would, but when my eyes darted over to her, fully intent on looking back to Kurama after briefly checking on her, she was also leaned against one knee, her arm up against her left collarbone. "Clever," she murmured, giving a small smirk, and then she fell forward.

I blinked. _…Clever!_ my mind finally raged. _What the_ HELL _just happened!_

After the fox regained a standing position, Suurii gave a ten-count, and Asakari never moved until the end when the announcer called, "And Team Ketsueki earns their first point! It's two to one, with Team Kurayami still in the lead!"

My confusion only grew when Kurama walked across the ring after pulling the remaining kunai from his leg and flipped Asakari over, making a small, centimeter-long incision in her shirt above the collarbone she had held with what I guessed was his nail. She was still smirking, shaking her head in wonder. "No wonder Lord Spike was so thrilled in Tamiko's choice of you after the war," she mumbled, though I could barely hear it.

"Stay still," Kurama told her, not roughly, and he pulled what looked like a—seed?—from her skin, and it seemed that there was a plant growing in reverse and shrinking back into the seed.

"Well, it's about time that Team Ketsueki got a point, and I couldn't be happier that it was done using one of Kurama's attacks that I'm most fond of!" Koto said into the microphone, though I had already gathered what had happened now. What I had thought I'd seen was a— "Death seeds! What a great way to kill someone. Unfortunately, Asakari was not killed by this attack, and it seems that now that he's won, Kurama is actually, er, removing it." Outside of the microphone she added in a mutter, "I'll never understand these people."

I assumed 'these people' were my team; speaking of, two members of it—of course the two being Kuwabara and Yusuke—were whooping about our first victory and acting as though they had been the ones to do it. Hiei, on the other hand, looked bored and almost annoyed, though it was easy to read his mind without a jagan over what was annoying—Kurama's sentiments toward our 'enemy'.

After a moment or two, Kurama helped Asakari stand, and the two nodded to each other before walking away with their heads held as high as they possibly could when they were both wounded, though Asakari was much worse off than Kurama and the fox didn't appear to be in bad shape at all, only tired.

"Alright, now that this round is finally heating up, both teams, please send in your competitors!"

Kent and Skyre helped Asakari down from the ring, and as they took her to lean against the wall of the arena and as Kurama joined us, Zerathus stepped up in her place in the ring.

"Team Ketsueki, please present your combatant!"

I had to wonder sometimes if the referees had a limited list of ways to ask for people to come to the ring—they seemed to repeat themselves often.

"Oh, believe me," came Spike's voice from across the ring, and I looked over to him with slightly narrowed eyes, "Team Ketsueki will have no problem choosing an opponent for Zerathus." I think that was the first time I'd ever heard him call his friend 'Zerathus' rather than 'Zer'. "This is a pre-made match that has yet to have a finish."

"Ooo, sounds like grudge-match time!" Koto cried enthusiastically.

­_Grudge?_ I thought as I stepped up across from Zerathus, feeling rather nervous about the fight, which was a feeling I wasn't too used to. I hadn't really thought of Zerathus and I holding grudges against one another due to our skirmish in Z'chor, but then again, Koto was probably just assuming from what Spike had said.

_Use your head,_ came Hiei's voice in my mind. _Don't be careless about this fight. This isn't a spar—Zerathus will not be as inclined to let you live this time around._

Despite his tone saying 'don't be an idiot like usual', I figured that was the closest I'd ever get from Hiei to a 'be careful', and I just said, _I'll be careful_, in response.

"Let the match, Zerathus versus Ketsue, begin!"

_No 'hajime'?_ I wondered, but my casual thoughts were quickly smothered as Zerathus shot sideways and out of my sight. I could sense him behind me for the briefest of times, but he was in front of me again the moment I felt his energy, and I knew immediately that his display in Z'chor had been little more than a mockery of his actual skills. _I…am so screwed._ I considered as he 'danced' around me that I had said that several times, and every time I'd lived, but living and winning were different things, and I still highly doubted that I'd be able to beat him. Or remain conscious. _I shouldn't have taken this fight. I should've let Hiei fight._

_Don't be so moronic,_ Hiei's voice growled telepathically. _Stop thinking about what you are and aren't capable of and fight back. You're already admitting defeat before he's even thrown a punch._ There was a brief pause, before he finished with the real motivation that got me to summon my weapon, saying, _Like a human._ I had to resist turning and fighting him instead for that comment. _You thought the same way before you fought me, but you've learned since then and you're not nearly as incompetent as you were when I first started training you. You couldn't back out of this fight even if you decided to. So fight him, damn it!_

I was forced to do so quicker than I had intended, as Zerathus stopped trotting around me, and he was next to me in an instant, the outer side of his hand hitting the left side of my neck with a greater force than a metal pole. Not entirely sure how I knew what being hit with a metal pole felt like, I did my best to ignore the sensation of pain prickling up my neck and infecting my chin, collarbone and shoulder as I reached for my sword, realizing too late that it wasn't tied around my waist. I quickly made up for it by summoning my energy sword, and I slashed sideways with speed obviously far more impressive than I'd given myself credit for—I hadn't expected it to actually hit Zerathus, at least not yet. The slash mark across his abdomen nearly exactly resembled the one Hiei had given me during sparring.

Speaking of Hiei, like the fire demon, Zerathus didn't seem to even register pain, and he attacked me with the swiftness I would have assumed from him only if I hadn't actually been able to injure him. He didn't draw any weapon or transform, using only his arms and legs to battle me. His movements were amazingly trained and quick, and I had to wonder how many hundreds of years of experience he had.

At some point after a series of tough-to-follow moves that I was barely able to block, he somehow got his ankles around my waist and leaned back onto his arms, throwing me with his legs across the ring and flipping backward to shoot energy at my form as I narrowly caught myself on the floor of the ring and slid backward. The energy caught me on the front of my neck, making me note that shadowcats had a thing for throats; I figured it was just instinctual to them to aim for that.

I was thrown to the ground again by the force of it, and immediately Zerathus flew at me again, now with his sickle drawn. I managed to block it with my sword, and I pulled my unused right arm back to summon a hellflame sword, slashing it at him. He sprang backward with another new wound, but again dove for me without second thought. I would have thought he would at least have been slowed down by a hellflame sword, as hellflame didn't feel even near the same as a normal sword.

_Nothing is even phasing him._ I decided after that thought that finally listening to Hiei's fight-to-kill advice may be a good idea, because Zerathus had definitely adopted the concept.

Forcing myself not to hold back at all against him, I brandished both of my swords and sprang at him, slashing them at the same time. Predictably enough, the slashes were futile, but I quickened my pace and was able to get behind him and lash out again with the blades.

Just like with my other fight of an earlier round, the fight quickly became repetitive. Zerathus obviously had the edge, though as I continued to shove back my emotions, I began to catch up with him skill-wise. It was so repetitive, in fact, that I find no motivation to write it down, as it would only bore you and I.

At some point about seven minutes after the beginning of the fight, both of us were wearing down. I hadn't thought Zerathus would be the type to tire, especially not this soon into the battle. My sensible side said that when Nirvana had hit Zerathus with the attack intended for Spike, he had been weakened in strength and the ability to dodge.

Another ten minutes passed. Our movements were quick enough and our attacks complicated enough that the demons and non-humans watching were able to keep themselves amused, but I found no enjoyment in the fight, and again feel no need to narrate all of it.

I'm not even sure how the opportunity dawned, but at some point Zerathus's stomach was open to attack, and I slashed toward it with my sword. He jumped only a small amount, and I felt his hand on my back as I went under him, and something stabbed into the back of my left upper leg, wrenching from it as quickly as it had entered.

Spinning as quickly as possible with my new injury and with how tired I was, I lashed out again with my blade, my weapon making a semi-deep slash up his forehead and directly through the black symbol on his brow. He dove for me again, not noticing the wound, and just as I felt something sharp slide into my abdomen, I pivoted and drove my sword toward him. I barely paid attention to my aim, fumbling for the weapon—which appeared to be the same thing he had used against me in Z'chor—that was in my stomach, and pulling it out with a single yank after grabbing a hold of the handle.

The crowd was silent, I realized, and I turned my gaze to Zerathus and to see where my blade had landed. It had been driven cleanly through his upper back. The fight was over.

_No_, I thought, even as I pulled the weapon his flesh by reflex. It really didn't matter to me in that moment that I had another semi-severe torso wound, and that if I hadn't killed him that he probably would have killed me first. _You were supposed to dodge. I wasn't supposed to win. And I wasn't supposed to…_

"Zer!" It was Asakari's voice. I heard movement and sensed someone holding her back; I assumed she was trying to go to Zerathus.

There was no further comment, and I watched blankly as the shadowcat in front of me fell limply to his knees and then collapsed sideways with a soft _thud_.

The black raven on his brow glistened with blood, and looked as though it were bleeding itself. His eyes stared ahead, blank, unseeing.

Zerathus was dead.

I could feel my wrists and ankles drawing together, the spirit cuffs not so easy to control when my mind lacked all thought. Did I…just…kill someone? …Again? Someone who wasn't an Escque or meaningless demon worthy of a grudge and slaughter…someone I knew personally and almost liked…

_Killed._ That word rang in my mind with the persistence of a banshee hell-bent on revenge.

My first thought was to faint; my second was to run, though I wasn't sure what from; my third was to apologize to Spike, and my forth was that I was being weak about death and not nearly demonic enough for this tournament. The third thought continued, then, when I realized that Spike was glaring at me with such extreme, pained hatred that 'glare' seemed like a weak word—apologizing would offer no comfort to either of us; the forth thought was added onto when I realized I _wasn't_ demonic enough for this tournament, and I should have never come. Thus the fifth thought, considering crying, dawned, but I didn't act upon any of them. I just straightened to my full height (Which wasn't very tall) and choked back my unwanted tears, and ignored the lump in my throat.

"Winner by death is Ketsue!"

I flinched; I tried to hold it back, but was unable, and I could hear mutters through the crowd about how odd remorse at killing was in the Dark Tournament. So I was sad about killing someone I knew—what was wrong with that?

My thoughts were becoming angry quickly, but they were cut short as Suurii said, "Ketsue, are you willing to fight again?"

I lifted my eyes, dreading, to meet the cold, though not unexpected, gaze of Spike.

"If you aren't," he said stiffly, his tone completely blank from what I assume was pain, though it was clear he was attempting his hardest to sneer, "then I will take pleasure in killing Hiei instead." By the simple fact that he had not irritatingly called Hiei 'your demon,' I was reminded of how close Spike and Zerathus had been. He wasn't able to joke, even if he was unconsciously doing so when he called Hiei 'your demon'; not that I expected him to joke after the death of his comrade, but demons and shadowcats were different from humans, and I doubted they normally took death so hard.

_I just killed his best friend,_ I thought blankly, horror beginning to grow in the back of my mind. I hadn't really even registered the threat he had directed at Hiei. "No," I responded softly, tonelessly, "I'll fight you."

"Good." His tone was as flat as mine. "I wouldn't have found as much fun in destroying him rather than you."

Even as Suurii began to raise her arm in what felt like slow motion, I didn't move to get into a defensive or offensive stance, nor did I summon a weapon or draw my blade. In fact, I really hadn't planned to; I was too focused on the belief that I should allow Spike to kill me for killing his best friend.

_Don't even consider that,_ came a familiar voice in my mind. I would have thought that the first person to speak to me telepathically would have been Chichiro, egging me on to do just that and allow both me and her to die, but it was Hiei.

_I just killed Zerathus. I just killed Spike's closest friend,_ I responded, my mind-tone soft. Suurii had lowered her arm by now, and was beginning to call out 'Hajime', but again, everything seemed slower.

_I realize that. But we can't afford to loose you now._ I found some degree of disappointment in his choice of 'we can't' rather than 'I can't', but I wouldn't have really expected him to say 'I' anyway, if I could have predicted his words. "Hajime!" _We need you to win this tournament._ I summoned my sword out of sheer habit to block Spike as he launched himself at me, and I didn't stop myself in my distraction at paying attention to Hiei's words. _Winning the tournament would be pointless if you were killed, anyway._

My eyes slid sideways to meet his for a fraction of a second (But it seemed longer.) before I felt the weight of Spike's weapon pressing against mine, and I turned to shove against it, everything beginning to move as quickly as it should.

I won't pretend that because of what he said, everything was better and I still wanted to fight, but it was true that I did fight back even though my mind and my muscles weren't willing. Even if it was just to satisfy my team in winning the tournament, or to satisfy them in a pointless, sentimental way, I would fight to survive in this battle. But I would not fight to kill. I doubted I ever would be able to again against anything but an Escque.

Spike's skills were nearly as amazing as I had expected, but I knew that he was fighting half-ass at most. His heart was not in his moves, no matter how badly he wanted revenge, and I could almost feel the weight of his limbs that he felt at the continuous thought of his friend's death.

I know that if he had honestly been trying, there would have been no way I would have beat him. The same went for Zerathus, as to not beating him, but I knew he had at least tried—he was just unable to fight to his full ability because of his injuries from Nirvana. If I thought about it that way, it was honestly a freak accident that my team won. Maybe if Hiei had been doing the fighting it would have been understandable, but both of the shadowcats I fought and somehow beat far surpassed my level.

Even so, less than three minutes into the fight I caught Spike at a vulnerable spot, and threw him backward and out of the ring with an energy blast.

I had hoped for him to kill me during the fight to satisfy his revenge and my guilt, but I was given no such luxury. Nor was I given the luxury of having him beat me even without taking my life, for he didn't get up from his place in the rubble of the wall. He just remained unblinking on the ground, staring upward at nothing in particular, all of his will to fight seeming to be zapped right out of his body.

Or so it seemed, until Suurii called, "Ten! And Team Ketsueki takes another point and wins the round!" At that, he shot up and dove for me, though Asakari and Kent caught him before he made it to a thirty-foot range of me, and he ignored the referee as she finished, "They will be facing Team Nirvana in the final round!"

His eyes were narrowed in pain and rage directed at me, and he just growled throatily in a cat-like snarl for a moment or two before finally throwing a shout toward me. "You _killed_ Zer!" His struggles against his comrades were weak and half-hearted, but I still found myself unable to meet his weary gaze. "You killed my _brother_!" The knowledge that he and Zerathus had no biological relation flickered in the back of my mind, but somehow that only strengthened his words. "You shouldn't be…I should have killed you!" His speech lapsed into a different language that I didn't recognize, though I had the sense that I would have known what he was saying if Hiei hadn't withdrawn the language knowledge he had implanted in my mind with his jagan. I just figured that meant that I wouldn't have enjoyed what he said.

"The final round will be held the day after tomorrow, with a full day in-between for both Team Nirvana and Team Ketsueki to rest up and heal whatever wounds they can so that they can all be fit to fight!"

Spike's words had dropped off at Koto's voice, and now he had regained that blank look in his eyes that made my guilt seem so much heavier.

There was a certain foreboding sense I received from the announcer's next words, however predictable and lacking eloquence they happened to be. "And then we can have a gore-fest fit only for the final round of the Dark Tournament, or so we can hope!"

I found myself disinterested in listening further when she started talking about betting booths, snack bars and hotels, and I cast a glance at where Spike's team had stood—they were all now absent from their spot, as was Zerathus from the ring. _They're swift,_ I thought without any true interest.

"Ketsue."

I glanced sideways without turning my head as Hiei walked over to me, and I found myself unable to lift my eyes to meet his.

My expression must have been as blank as I felt, because he growled none-too-gently, "Snap out of it! We've won."

I looked up faintly. "Have we?"

His eyes flickered the slightest bit, somehow in a very similar way to both considering narrowing his eyes and glaring at me, and similar to looking like he felt almost bad for me, though I wasn't sure why he'd do either. "Stop seeking pity. You will not receive it."

I said nothing to retaliate, and I slowly went to follow him.

From in front of me, I heard a different voice shout, "Great job!"

I looked to Yusuke after he spoke, his ecstatic expression dropping at what I assume was a disheartened look from me, and I simply shrugged and muttered something incoherent even to me before simply turning around and walking away, not particularly caring where my feet led me.

* * *

**Authoress's Note: **Ehh, I'm not sure if I like this chapter too much or not. I love the concept and the death and such, but I hate hurting Spike's character, especially emotionally. (Note: The authoress cares much more for Spike's 'wounds' even though Zerathus is the one who just _died_.) And I could have lived without random angst for a few more chapters, since the chapter after the next will have _lots_ of random angst for us all to either enjoy with a sick, sadistic passion, or groan about with much eye-rolling.

Speaking of the next chapter, it should half-explain the vision. I can't say why it's only half, since if I did it would give away the next chapter, but I can guarantee it'll either anger, annoy or confuse people when it happens. :3 Hope you enjoyed the latest update—I plan on continuing this regularly again, so look out for new chapters.


	27. Betrayal

**Disclaimer:** Neither Hiei, nor Yu-Yu-Hakusho is mine.

**Claimer:** Chichiro and Ketsue are mine, Kaze is BritKit, Aria is FoxWitch. While not all the characters are mine, all writing, storylines and concepts in this fanfiction (Save any YYH references) are (This includes Nirvana, Spike, all shadowcats, the shadowcat species, all of the opponents of the Dark Tournament this time around, Suurii, etcetera.).

* * *

Several hours had passed since the end of the semi-finals. It seemed my feet had decided to lead me to the cliff, where I had remained until it had gotten dark. Actually, until it had gotten dark and near when it began to get light again, because I fancied that I could see the slightest hint of a red tinge on the horizon. It was when the sun did peak the horizon that Kurama came out to talk to me, and probably to try and cheer me up even though I doubted he understood the reasoning for my solitude, receiving nothing but monotone answers from me; he quickly gave up and decided I was a lost case at the moment, leaving. Yusuke and Kuwabara tried various times the rest of the day to get me to 'stop moping—I mean, we _won_!' and either hang out with them, spar, or, as was their favorite excuse (Three guesses why), 'go find Hiei' even though they had no reason for the suggestion.

It was dark out again, the night before the final round of the tournament, when the group finally decided to force the fire demon to talk to me instead.

I looked out at the dark sky, listening to the soft lapping of the waves on the cliff, and I let the spirit cuffs on my arms increase and decrease in power, my wrists sliding closer and farther away from each other, as an almost unconscious movement of boredom.

I sensed something approaching behind me, but only faintly, as I wasn't really concentrating, and I didn't care to. I half expected it to be Spike, recovered enough to finish the job, but I doubted I would be so lucky. The energy stopped a few feet away from me, and as an impulse I allowed myself to concentrate on identifying it, and so I wasn't surprised when Hiei came to stand next to me. I looked sideways from the corner of my eyes, but I didn't really see much through the long drape of my hair, and I shifted my focus back to gazing out at the horizon as Hiei was doing. "I still don't see what the point of these was," I murmured monotonously, still moving my wrists closer and farther from each other with the spirit cuffs' power.

"The longer you keep them on, the more often you remain at full power. Your body will have to make up for the energy you're using, and thus creates more, quicker, and you become stronger faster."

"My spirit energy does," I responded. "I'm not getting stronger."

I could feel his eyes on me, and his voice sounded almost criticizing when he said, "And what does that mean?"

"I keep thinking that I'm a demon," I said quietly, tonelessly. "But how can I call myself a demon when I can't handle killing someone who isn't even a human?"

I half expected him to agree by saying that I should be able to kill a human as well, but though his response was halfway similar, it did not head in the direction I expected. "It doesn't matter what someone's breed is. You didn't know that human—what if I told you he was a demon?"

I blinked, my eyes focused on my knees now in a downcast way, and I just mumbled, "What?"

"Would you feel any less guilt if I told you he was a demon?"

I hadn't really thought about it, but I suppose that now that I felt obligated to dislike what I had done and that it had been burned into my mind, I wouldn't. _But,_ I considered after only a short moment, _I'm probably only thinking too highly of myself. I guess I _would_ feel less guilt if I knew he was a demon._ "What's your point?" I responded without answering his question.

"You should feel guilt for killing Zerathus. Not for killing the human."

I narrowed my eyes at the fabric of my jeans, wanting badly to glare at him; was he lecturing me on killing Zerathus?

"You knew him better than you knew the man you killed—you didn't even know that ningen's name, did you?" His tone didn't sound much like an actual question, just something that he was pointing out. "Breed doesn't matter with death, only the connection you had with the one you killed."

I sighed. "Even so, this isn't helping me at all."

"Who said I was trying to? I was making a point."

I was almost stunned that he began to walk away, but when I really thought about it, I figured I shouldn't be; I had just gotten used to him being…nicer. This was more to his actual personality, though, and I found a smirk of mild grim humor on my face. I dropped it quickly, and before he was ten feet away, I said quietly, "Hiei?"

I heard his footfalls stop. "What?"

I shifted my eyes to the ground, unsure of why I felt so uncomfortable asking him this now, as I'd never really had a problem with it before. "Would you mind…staying?"

I sensed him return my smirk from before, but I doubted his was as grim. "Why?"

I feigned a small grin, then just waved my hand dismissively and muttered, "Never mind."

I hadn't really known, for once, what to expect from him right then, so I lacked surprise or mild satisfaction that I had been right when he continued to walk back toward the hotel, or so I assume was his destination. With a low sigh, I straightened my back from my slouch, and I closed my eyes, keeping my arms and legs as they had been as I began to meditate.

My concentration was broken when I sensed an irregular energy. Not the energy of a living thing, but a rift. I hadn't felt a rift tear open in a long time, but the feeling quickly ceased, as if the rift had opened long enough to let something out and then sealed back up.

I opened my eyes and stood slowly, ignoring my aches and pains from the fights and before the fights, and set off after the new energy signal on the island—something _had_ come from the rift.

My walk took me to a part of the island I didn't know well, but I couldn't think of the probability of me being lost when I arrived there, as two startling, large glowing eyes caught my attention. I ducked behind the nearest tree, sliding down it in a half-crouch. I was in no shape to fight, and hoped that the scent of blood on my clothing was not obvious.

_An entity? Here?_ I felt my stomach twist nervously. I didn't have the energy required to take down an entity; maybe if I waited until the next day and recovered some of my energy, I'd be able to fight it, but at that moment, I was as good as human.

"_You are the demon that took the life of my sister._" This entity had a deep, rumbling voice. It was soothing, not menacing as those words probably should have been. It was hard to distinguish any form of tone in the voice of an entity, but as it spoke next, it sounded almost…amused? "_Of course I use 'sister' loosely. We mahdaegrah are genderless._"

_A mahdaegrah._ Even though I was thinking it, I still had an issue with pronouncing its species name. _But still, why the hell is it here, on this island?_

"_You can stop hiding from me, reincarnate. I can sense just as well as you can._"

I closed my eyes for the briefest of seconds, biting my lip and attempting to calm my nerves. It obviously _could_ sense me—any demon could. And I still assumed that my blood was easy to smell, as well. But I still couldn't bring myself to step out from behind the trunk, never moving from my place against it. When I opened my eyes, however, not three seconds after my eyelids touched, its glowing set of eyes were about eight feet from me, which meant, because of how long its face was, that if I stretched out my arm I would touch its muzzle. Trying to stop myself from shaking, and not entirely sure why I feared it or the death that it could possibly bring, I slowly stood, its lowered head rising along with my form, its expressionless eyes never leaving my face.

Before I could even manage to put my arm (Which was threaded in the other and across my chest) down to summon an energy sword, it made a sound quite like a laugh and growled, "_I did not come to inflict harm upon your person._"

_Well, that's a bit long just to say 'I mean you no harm',_ I thought. "Then…why did you come here?"

"_Ah, she speaks. I was beginning to wonder if I had confused you for a different demon. I have, after all, only the fleeting image of you from my sister's memory._"

I blinked, and when my eyes opened a fraction of a second after they had closed, the startling difference between the glow of the mahdaegrah's eyes and the darkness around us made me squint, and I could feel myself getting a headache. "Your sister's…memory? You mean, the…" I paused for a moment, and figured I shouldn't even try to say 'mahdaegrah' out loud, and I continued, "...entity that I killed?" The word 'kill' still made me want to wince, though I never allowed myself to. Briefly I considered that the mahdaegrah, though he—and I say 'he' only because it sounded male; after all, it did say its species was genderless—had made a point to tell me he wouldn't hurt me, might have held a grudge against me, and that was another reason I probably shouldn't have said 'killed'.

"_Yes. I could have meant another sister and another memory, if I had another sister and another memory to remember._"

I must have looked at it strangely, which was understandable, as its long fangs showed as a grin slid across its dragon-like lips and another sound that I could only fathom at this point as a laugh shook the air around me. "_Yes,_" it said finally, "_that is who I meant._" I could only guess that meant that he could extract memories from dead relatives or something to the effect, as he explained no further on how he had her memory. He paused a short moment, then answered my earlier question about why it had come. At least I thought that was what it was doing, and it seemed a fair guess.

"_Do not always trust your eyes_," it growled softly. "_They are not as reliable as they may seem._"

It took me a second or two for it to click in my mind, and I said quietly, "Are you…blind?"

"_I am stunned it took you so long to realize,_" it responded with mock surprise, but I could hear amusement in its voice.

"So how can you look at me? And how can you…er…seem so much like you can see me?"

"_I never thought you'd ask such a foolish question, with your own eyesight lacking at certain times._"

I blinked. "Wait, how did you—?"

"_The source of knowledge is not important, only the knowledge itself._"

"O…kay. So, why are you telling me all this? Do you think something is going to happen to me, or something?"

"_What you ask is quite like asking the riddler to explain his riddles._" Again, a smile slid across its dragon-like lips to reveal the sharp teeth behind them. "_You will know soon enough._"

I watched it for a moment in silence, then asked in a low voice, "Why are you helping me? Or giving me advice, or whatever you're doing? You said it yourself—I killed your sister."

"_But you had remorse in doing so. I can ask for no better apology, and I would be unable to do anything but accept it without grudge._" It blinked once, and I realized that it was the first time I'd seen it do so the entire time I'd spoken with it. "_I feel no obligation not to help you simply for what you have done in the past. In the future, you will need what I have told you. It is that simple._"

I narrowed my eyes at it, more of a considering squint than a glare. "That's all you came for?" I doubted that it would assume that I meant it rudely—it was an honest question, after all, and somehow I didn't see mahdaegrahs as creatures that took offense to something easily like the shadowcat species.

"_Yes. Should I have gathered more reasoning before presenting myself to you?_"

I blinked, unsure of how to answer him for a short while, and then I finally said, "Uhm, no. Never mind. How did you get here?"

"_Through the rift. Did you not sense it?_"

"Well, yeah, I sensed the rift, but why was there a rift here? I thought that demons were too preoccupied here to bother with rifts for a while."

"_Not all rifts are demon-made, or made at all. Sometimes they are simply born from nothingness of their own free will._"

Again, I blinked. "Rifts have a will? …_Nothingness_ has a will?"

It only gave me a small laugh once more, which I decided to take as a double yes. Then it said, "_For whatever reason, your existence and need for my aid sparked the rifts' will, and one appeared here to allow me to tell you the message that I have just delivered._"

"And how did I do that?" I wondered aloud, and what Hiei had said some time ago about me somehow stopping the Escque from taking over the world came to mind. _Does it have something to do with that?_

"_By the look in your eyes, you already know._"

I raised my eyebrows at it. "Is that so? The last time I checked, you were blind."

It just stared at me with its sightless eyes, then said in an amusingly human-like way, "_So?_"

I grinned lightly. "Never mind." I sensed something nearby, but nothing appeared, and the mahdaegrah didn't seem worried. I decided against mentioning it, and said, "Are you…Is that all you were here to say?" I knew I had already asked that, but I also knew that the mahdaegrah would realize that I was asking if it was going leave, now.

"_It was,_" it confirmed with the smallest inclination of its head, which I guessed was a nod; he continued, "_The rift will soon reopen and give me free passage back to Makai. Unlike my sister, I do not seek to aid the expansion of my world. I am neutral, like the Inuichi._"

I would have asked what an Inuichi was, but the brief memory of a page of a book, with a huge black shadowcat with saber-like fangs, flickered within my mind, all in writing that I could not understand, but I knew that the Inuichi was the breed of shadowcat that Spike, Tamiko, Asakari and the others were. Somehow I also realized immediately that I had just caught a flash of Chichiro's memories—I wasn't normally that quick.

"_So do not feel the need to attack._"

It registered that entities, mahdaegrahs and Escque lacked pride in that moment. It said nothing about not fearing attack or death, or defended itself against my possible thoughts—it just said it and assumed I would understand, and it didn't care if I didn't.

As if responding to the mahdaegrah's words, the rift that had disappeared began to tear once more. It seemed too small to be an actual rift, and looked more like a horizontal rift-tear, but because of its shape and the energy coming from it, I could tell that it was a rift. Just a very, very small one.

"You're…going to fit through that?" I asked, hoping it didn't sound rude.

Its lips pulled back and formed another halfway-creepy grin. "_No,_" it said, "_by the laws of the human world, I shouldn't. But we are not in the human world, nor will this rift cross to the human world. You and I needn't worry about my size._"

"…M'kay."

Its large head rose in what could have been considered a graceful way, and with a twist of its body, it curled around and shot through the small rift. For some reason, it made complete sense to me that its body fit, though by all logic it should have confused me or at least made my head explode from trying to understand it. It was like watching the original version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as a kid and not getting exactly how the doors in the factory worked.

"_It was a rewarding journey to finally meet Panas,_" was all that I heard before the rift resealed and the mahdaegrah disappeared back into the demon realm.

"'Panas'?" I quoted, narrowing my eyes at the strip of sky that had torn and sewn back together.

"What was that about?"

At Hiei's voice, I turned and glanced backward at him. "So it was you I sensed," I mumbled, and after a moment I simply stepped forward and walked past him.

His voice carried over my shoulder. "You're not going to answer me?"

"Do I have to?" I replied. "It didn't concern you—you shouldn't care."

I thought I may have heard him smirking when he spoke next. "I assume this is payback for earlier?"

I stopped and looked back to him, asking innocently, "What do you mean by that?"

He just shrugged and headed toward me, and when he was near enough that our footfalls would match stride for stride, I continued walking. "We battle Nirvana tomorrow," he muttered to me. "Are you ready?"

"Well, how do you define 'ready'?"

He quirked a brow at me, then growled, "I mean, do you have the ability to keep yourself alive?"

I grinned lightly. "Perhaps."

He sighed. "How convincing."

I raised my shoulders in a low shrug. "I wasn't trying to convince you of anything."

"Your tone was sarcastic when you said 'perhaps'. Obviously you do think you're ready."

I shifted my gaze sideways at him. "So what do I need to do to convince you other than think that I'm ready?"

He didn't respond, and we made it all the way to Hotel Kubikukuri before either of us spoke again. We stopped just outside the revolving doors, ten or fifteen feet off. "So," I sighed, my voice rather sarcastic, "decided to just walk me home and take off?"

Hiei regarded me with a flat glare, and he muttered, "Unless you've forgotten how much I despise that place, I'd say it's stupid to assume anything else."

"I haven't forgotten," I mumbled back, turning and waving as I walked toward the doors. "I guess I'll see you tomorrow."

"Ketsue."

His voice stopped me—not really the fact that he wanted me to stop, because I was in the mood to ignore him, but his tone. "What?"

"Nirvana's power far surpasses your level, and she's far more strategic than I think you'll ever be."

I gave a light sigh, and responded, "So then don't let me fight her."

There was a brief pause, and I considered heading up to the hotel room without waiting to see if he'd answer me, but he finally said, "I don't think that will be possible."

I grinned, turning to face him and I jested, "So you listen to Nirvana now?"

"Don't insult me. You know that this entire tournament would bow to her whim even if we didn't agree, and you'll be forced to fight her whether you or I want you to or not."

I dropped my smirk. "Why are you so positive she'll want to fight me?"

With sarcasm equal to what I'd used before, Hiei growled back, "Well, it's not like she tried to turn you against me or kill you or anything of the like. Obviously I have no reason to assume that."

I shrugged again, not responding for a moment, and when I did it wasn't to answer that question. "Well…again, I'll see you tomorrow. Hopefully I don't get killed."

A small 'hn' was the only reply I received.

* * *

Morning came too quickly. I supposed that it was the fault of the guilt from the day before yesterday that had kept me awake—at least that's what I wanted the case to be. The annoying part of the back of my mind, which was always right, told me otherwise: I was nervous. I hated feeling nervous, or feeling dread toward anything, but I dreaded fighting Nirvana. I wasn't sure if it was because of what Hiei had told me yesterday, that I wasn't at her level and I wasn't ready for it, or because it signaled the end of the tournament. The end of the tournament, when the arena would be as close to destroyed as it could be without collapsing, when my vision was supposed to take place.

I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to push back those thoughts—I shouldn't believe in it. Even if it was a vision, something _had_ to be wrong. Maybe he was controlled, or something. I already knew for a fact that it wasn't Nirvana in the vision, that much I had confirmed the first time I saw it. Then again, the thought of Hiei being controlled was laughable—who would be strong enough to do it? Nirvana? Again, laughable.

With a low sigh and a small stretch, I sat up without opening my eyes, lifting my eyelids only after I was facing forward, my legs hanging off of the black couch.

"Oh, good," came Kurama's voice from somewhere near me, "you're already up. Well, that's one thing out of the way."

He came into view from behind the couch, and, mumbling something about how he had to now wake Yusuke and Kuwabara, he left without further word directed at me.

I rubbed at my eyes, pulling my hand down my face and leaning my chin onto my palms, my elbows propped on my knees.

"You look enthusiastic."

I glanced up into Hiei's crimson orbs, and with an indifferent shrug, I muttered, "Oh yeah, I'm rearin' to go get my ass kicked. Always look forward to that."

"Good to hear," was his response, and then I heard the door click as he left, and I looked toward it with my eyebrows raised.

"I guess everyone's about as talkative as me this morning," I mumbled, standing up too fast, my vision blurring. For a moment I nearly panicked when I thought I was having a blind flash, but my sight returned and I quickly calmed down. "Me? Paranoid?" I said, to myself, as if some unseen person had thrown the accusation at me. "Nope, never. Not me."

"Talking to yourself already?" I didn't bother glaring at Yusuke as he walked in the room. I was too tired, not in the mood, and he wasn't worth it. "A bit soon for that, isn't it? I thought you had to be at Kuwabara's level of stupidity to do that."

"And you speak from experience, I take it?" I replied dryly.

"Someone's in a good mood," he noted sarcastically.

"…Meh."

"Enough standing around," Hiei growled at us both from the doorway. "This is no time for your idle chat."

_Apparently everyone's as busy as hell this morning, too._ Hiei was gone when I looked up, so I had no time to respond. _Good thing,_ I decided—I'd had enough sarcasm for the day just in the short time I'd been awake, and no doubt my response would have been soaked in it.

Glancing over at the detective a few feet away from me, I muttered, "Do you think I have time for a shower?"

He blinked once, then said, "Well, since Hiei's impatient about us talking, I doubt it."

"…Eheh, right."

He shrugged. "I don't see why you'd want to take one anyway—you demons never seem to need one. 'S not like your bodies are the same as human bodies."

It was my turn to blink a singular time to illustrate minor confusion. "'You demons'? I thought you were a demon."

"Nah, I'm a half-breed. Demonkin."

I walked over toward the door, asking, "And you expect 'demonkin' to mean something to me?"

"Well, you _are_ Chichiro, right? You should know what it means. Besides, I already said 'half-breed', and y'don't need to be too smart to get that one."

I walked past him without answering, figuring that it didn't matter how many times I tried to explain being-Chichiro-but-at-the-same-time-not-being-her to Yusuke—he'd never get it.

The hall was quickly becoming familiar to me, like when moving into a new house—I could have walked down the stairs blind already, and it had only been, what, five days? Six? I glided down them, past the various random demons, and out the sliding front door.

"Ketsue." Despite the fact that I automatically recognized Hiei's voice, I still hit his hand out of reflex when it snagged the upper half of my left arm when I walked past. Obviously I had hit it harder than I originally thought, because he withdrew it and glared at me when I turned to him.

"What?"

"I know that you told me yesterday that you're ready to fight Nirvana," he started, pausing for a moment as a few lizard-like demons resembling those we had fought along with the Escque pased, and then he seemed to switch thought and said, "What if I told you I was Nirvana?"

I didn't even have to think about my response—he was obviously Hiei; as I've said several times, I could easily tell the difference between the real him and Nirvana's transformation, and he should have known that already. "I'd say 'bullshit'."

Before I could ask what he was heading toward, he immediately demanded, "How can you be sure that you can tell us apart?"

"I just know, trust me" I responded, using my 'drop it' look but with an easy grin. "So shut it and get to the point."

He sighed once, then growled, "You do realize we have to fight against her with the intent to kill, don't you?"

Despite what had happened with Zerathus, my immediate response was, "Of course. Where is this going?"

"What if she transforms into me during the fight?"

"What if?" I responded, my voice clearly jesting, but his expression was clearly annoyed.

"Would you still fight to kill her?"

"Well," I muttered, a bit fed up with the conversation just because I was easily cranky thanks to my lack of a good rest, "I fought to kill in sparring with you, didn't I?"

He blinked at me in what seemed to be his attempt at innocence. "Did you?"

I sighed heavily. "You're enjoying this, aren't you?" When he simply smirked at me in response, I rolled my eyes and started walking again. "I'll see you in the arena," I growled flatly.

* * *

It took longer than I thought for the arena to be prepared for the final round. The ring was somehow miraculously repaired when I arrived, but there were no demons in the seats yet, and the doors weren't open to allow them in either.

Unlike in the anime, the same arena was used the entire way through the tournament, and it didn't switch for these last few matches.

I spent about forty boring minutes leaned against the wall watching a few different demons in uniforms almost like a policeman's patrol around the seats and hallways leading into the ring. Every once and a while one would stop to question me as to why I was there, or ask for some sort of ID (Which of course I didn't have. I simply had to tell them that I was team captain of Team Ketsueki and answer 'no' to the question of having morphing abilities for them to leave me alone.), or chat about the last round. The last round conversations were rarely friendly congratulations, and more often they were either mocking of my remorse of killing or asking me how I beat the shadowcats, with it clear in the security guards' voices that they thought the match had been rigged.

Kurama joined me when the seats of the stadium began to fill, and about twenty minutes after him, Hiei came in as well. The two humans didn't show up until the round was about to start, and Nirvana was already facing us on the opposite side of the outside of the ring.

"Hello ladies and freaks, and welcome to the final round of the Dark Tournament!" (Koto, of course.) "It's guaranteed to be the most hectic fight of this year, as it always is, and let's hope for some decapitation, amputation, screams of agony and bloody kills!"

_Cheery girl, that one,_ I thought mildly, scanning the crowd as it roared with enthusiasm. It was hard to tell what anyone was saying, especially since there were at least fifteen different languages used by the lot of them, but it seemed that everyone was shouting something different.

"To review how the earlier parts of the tournament went, for anyone who missed the broadcast or wasn't here in person to watch the carnage," the announcer continued, her cat ears twitching from the constant bellows from the 'audience', "Team Ketsueki and Team Nirvana have both consistently used the same tactics throughout this year's battles, though they each used different styles. Team Ketsueki allowed all of their team members a chance to fight, though some of them were _obviously_ more skilled than others, but Team Nirvana has only used one contestant for their entire three rounds! And we all know that was the one and only Nirvana!"

My eyes widened. _She was the only one fighting through the entire tournament?_

"Of course," Koto's voice continued over the loud-speaker, "that doesn't mean it'll be the same for this round. Maybe she'll finally choose to use her team, but that all depends on how the team captains decide to have the fights play out. Nirvana's normal strategy is a single round with her against one, two or three of the fighters of the other team. Team Ketsueki, however, tends to have a normal five-fight round."

The calls from the crowd were becoming more distinguished as several demons chanted together, which came off as a rough, 'Start the fights!' repeated over and over.

"Now that that's over with," Suurii said, finally taking over Koto's commentary, "team captains, please meet in the center ring to discuss the terms!"

I stepped up and went to stand before Nirvana, really noticing for the first time our height difference. _I hate being short sometimes,_ I thought with mild annoyance.

"Hiei and I have a prior arrangement," the ram demoness purred to me, softly enough that I knew it was meant, as usual, for only my ears. "He and I have decided to fight one another." I blinked, confused, but she continued before I could ask when that had happened. "I know you're wondering why he warned you beforehand about fighting me if he already planned on battling me himself, but I assure you, he had reasoning." Her arrogant, irritating smirk widened into a sadistic grin. "I like to fight two team members at once, which I'm sure you know. I doubt Hiei could defeat me, no matter what his class or motivations, especially not with his injuries."

I gritted my teeth. She was doing that on purpose, mentioning his back wound and egging me on to join the fight. I supposed Hiei had known about this, too. "Then of course I'm going to be the other competitor from my team," I growled.

She never shifted her expression. "I had hoped enough."

"Sounds like an agreement!" Koto cried enthusiastically, and if her ears hadn't been so…noticeably large, I would have wondered how she had heard it. "A singular fight will decide the entire round, as has been the standard for Nirvana like I said before. It will be Nirvana versus Hiei and Ketsue. Any missing competitors, please step into the ring!"

Hiei was next to me before I could even look back to see if he was coming, and when he pointedly didn't meet my gaze, I wondered what he was thinking of. He probably didn't want me to rant at him about never mentioning his 'prior arrangement'.

Halfway unexpectedly (Only halfway simply because at this point, nothing was odd when Nirvana was the one doing it.), the ram demoness across from me spoke to me in my mind before Koto or Suurii could give the call to start the match. _Remember my offer, before we start this fight. We can kill him—together._

Another voice, though just as familiar, growled in my mind, _What is she saying to you? It's obvious in your expression that you're using telepathy._

_Don't talk to me while she's talking to me!_ I told Hiei._ It's painful to have more than one voice in your head!_ It was much worse than trying to pay attention to two people who were speaking out loud, and it was frustrating.

_Well?_ they both said at once, and I sighed.

To Nirvana I simply said, _Screw off,_ and to Hiei I said, _Never mind._

"All combatants ready?" Suurii asked, and after a unanimous nod from the three of us, she called, "Let the final match begin!"

I didn't even see Nirvana raise her arm before I was thrown backward with an incredible force. I sailed right out of the ring, hitting the wall of the arena that I sorely wished wasn't there.

"Nirvana seems to have chosen her target opponent for this match, like she always has, and this time around it's Ketsue!" Koto announced enthusiastically, bringing to mind the image of Y'Seeka and Aghskari and how Nirvana had attacked only the bear. Her strategy hadn't changed for fighting us. "Let's see if this team can handle the single direction attacks without conceding!"

Before I could even stand, another energy blast hit me full force. _Oh, for fuck's sake,_ I thought, not really even caring about the blood running down the side of my face and neck from her attack—I think I was too irritated by her low-down way of winning fights than worried about her unrelenting assault on me. _I'm not even back in the ring yet and she's still attacking me._

"One!" As Koto began the count, it crossed my mind that it seemed strange that she had begun counting this late, but then I recalled that she was supposed to delay.

I heard the sound of metal sliding against a scabbard, and Nirvana's attacks ceased long enough for me to open my eyes and see Hiei dive for Nirvana, sword in hand. And then another attack hit me, and I think if I hadn't finally noticed how much her attacks hurt, I would have just given an annoyed sigh and waited for whenever her energy blasts would stop hitting me so that I could at least stand.

"Two!"

Hiei's voice sounded as frustrated as I was becoming when he gave a low growl and went for Nirvana again, but she just pranced around the ring, dodging, and offered no attacks toward the fire demon, only me. "Ketsue, hold on!" he shouted over at me; he didn't sound annoyed, exactly, but angry. I guess it really hit me in that moment that he cared about me; I always was slow on the uptake. And I was supposed to believe that _he_ would try to kill me? Right then, that seemed completely ridiculous, if not impossible.

"Three!"

These thoughts were cut short when I suddenly realized that not only had the barrage of attacks stopped, but Nirvana was gone from the ring, and in her place was a second Hiei. She had transformed.

"Four!"

I pushed the thoughts of my various aches into the back of my mind, standing as quickly as I could and steadying myself before running back to the ring.

"And Ketsue is back in the ring!" Neither announcer commented further, I suppose because they were both confused about the transformation.

Despite the fact that it was incredibly weird, I had to admit—seeing Hiei fight himself was also incredibly cool.

_Fuck_, I thought; I couldn't help him. We weren't in close enough range for me to tell who was who, and their movements were too quick for me to distinguish any flaws in Nirvana's transformation.

One of the two had a clear advantage, that much was obvious. He was now over-powering the second version of himself, and as his sword shoved against the other's identical sword, the underdog of the two gritted his teeth and made the smallest sound to illustrate that he was having trouble holding out. Immediately figuring out who was who, I drew my own sword and threw it toward the pair. They both saw it coming, but the one it was aiming for, the weaker of the two, sprang back and swore. The stronger Hiei realized that I had recognized Nirvana, and his movements became less guarded, as he knew that I wouldn't mistakenly attack him.

Nirvana's arm suddenly morphed into a crude but effective-looking, blade, and she shifted to her normal form again, launching herself at me. I lowered myself into a defensive stance, beginning to gather energy in my hand. Hiei sprang up behind her, his sword raised and heading for the ram demoness coming toward me, but just before her weapon made contact with either me or my energy, she swung around suddenly and with a swish of her blade, ripped open a long, deep gash across Hiei's torso.

I was fully aware that the entire thing went incredibly fast, but it still felt as though someone has slowed everything down when he flew backward, and I think that was the first time since I had killed the human that the sight of blood made had me feel weak.

"Hiei." I barely noticed the sky darken spontaneously after my small whisper, and I certainly didn't connect then that it was the fault of my feelings toward what had just happened that made it begin to rain. "_HIEI!_"

I began to run toward him, but Koto's voice, over-laid over Kurama's, made me stop. The fox demoness said something about how Hiei was out of the ring, and by the looks of it out of the battle, but Kurama's voice came off louder than Koto's to me, despite the fact that he was farther away and not talking into a loud speaker. "Keep fighting, Ketsue!" He was beside Hiei, now, and already attempting to stop the bleeding; the demon was out cold. "If we win, he'll still have a chance to survive." By the looks of him, I somehow doubted. The way Kurama spoke and the look in his gaze didn't aid my suspicions at all. "But if we loose, Nirvana will have us all killed anyway. You must keep fighting!"

Against my instincts, I finally began to turn my back to Hiei and Kurama, and face Nirvana. She had oddly not attacked me while my back was to her, and she stood with her arms crossed on the opposite end of the ring, looking pleased with herself. _I hate you_, I thought vehemently, but I said nothing out loud. My jaw was locked. If I lost this…Hiei would die. But if I won…? He had been bleeding so badly…And I hadn't thought of any injury before that had been able to knock him out immediately after it was delivered. And it had been so close to his vitals…I grimaced at the thoughts that crossed my mind, and bit my lip.

"Ooo, now here's a twist I like!" came Koto's voice. "Nirvana switched her target mid-fight and went for Hiei instead, and Ketsue seems torn between continuing the fight or going to her fallen comrade! Hopefully she'll stay so we can get some more bloodshed in before this battle is over!"

Angrily, I turned to Koto, glaring at her with near-hatred, and I snarled, "Oh, there will be bloodshed. But if you don't shut up, there will be more than needed."

Her ears swiveled back, and though it was outside of the microphone, I could still barely hear her mutter, "I'm just doing my job. Jeez."

"Please," Nirvana purred, and my eyes snapped back to her, "don't blame the announcer for your own incompetence. It isn't her fault you couldn't help your demon, even though he seems to be the most important thing in this world to you." She grinned, her fangs showing, and I was amazed I didn't charge her blindly right then. I think I was too angry to even move. "I can understand only thinking of yourself, believe me. I just hadn't pegged you for the type who'd do it."

Alright, I admit it—I snapped. But in this case, my overwhelming rage at her for what she'd done, and the nerve she had continuing to annoy me as if she didn't expect me to do anything about it, aided me. My speed was incredible compared to what it was normally, and I was behind her in an instant, slamming my hand into the back of her neck, giving her no time to recover before I summoned my energy sword and slashed it down her lower back, directly across her spine. She grunted, and moved forward, leaping away from me and spinning around, ready for another attack.

The only thing I could think of when I saw the blood on my sword was the horrible, slow-motion feel I had gotten when I saw her attack hit Hiei. I glanced over at him, my muscles still unwilling to do much besides run over to him, and I was barely able to keep myself from doing so; the thought of 'the only way you can help him is to keep fighting' didn't seem to be holding up well in the category of motivation.

Nirvana caught on to my distraction, and despite the injuries I'd just delivered, she smirked. Probably just because her judgment over what she should say to me now had improved since her last taunt, she didn't comment on it. I had seen her expression, however, and it only served to fuel my anger, and my energy flared up around my sword, crackling with black flame, and I could feel something pulling at my right arm, where the hell-flame was sparking from.

I was hardly curious then, but I still had to wonder how the Dragon was able to pull at my bandage with the seal on my arm, but then I realized that it had actually been incinerated by the hell-flame. Any other time, I would have thought of that as bad-ass, but right then I could only think of the feeling of desired release from the Dragon, and I could feel a sense of burning along the skin on my arm, and I let my energy sword fall toward the ground; before it did, it disappeared and the energy absorbed into my body again. As I reached up to the bandage on my arm, I heard Kurama briefly hiss a small 'No!' Perhaps it had been louder—I couldn't be sure. All I knew was that no one was going to stop me from using the Dragon again, and that I relished every tiny detail of suppressed fear across Nirvana's face. It didn't matter to me that the person who had saved me from killing myself with the Dragon the first time was unconscious, and really, I didn't think about what would come after. I just thought about how much I would enjoy the feeling of Nirvana's flesh incinerating in the flames of my attack.

"Hiei, hold on," I heard Kurama murmur, soft enough that I assumed he didn't want me to hear it, but loud enough that it came off as urgent. Come to think of it, the fire demon's energy was faltering, weaker than before.

"Damn it." That voice belonged to Yusuke.

_Hiei's really going to die_, I thought faintly, my mind almost blank. If I didn't do something…if I didn't finish this quickly…Hiei would die. Actually, I believed in that moment that he would, that no matter how quickly or how long I happened to take to kill Nirvana that he would die.

But dwelling on that didn't help him at all, and I allowed the hell-flame to burn off the bandage on my right arm as it had with the seal, and I felt the same familiar gathering of energy in my chest, my energy flaring around me. The ram demoness before me didn't even try to retaliate—she knew it was impossible now. She could only wait for the Dragon and hope that she didn't get killed.

It took me a few moments to gather that the energy on my arm wasn't as strong as it should be, and it almost felt restrained, and then I remembered the spirit cuffs.

"_When you're ready, and trust me, that won't be for a while, you only have to say 'Avitus' to release yourself from them."_

"_Er…Avi-what?"_

"_Avitus," he repeated flatly. "And don't say it now, dumb-ass."_

_I think it's time now to release my power again,_ I thought blankly, still feeling completely controlled by my anger. All curiosity I had held toward how much my power would have increased using the spirit cuffs for only about a week was gone, and I no longer cared how strong I was or if I was strong enough to control the Dragon. I only wanted to release my power to destroy the bitch in front of me, and I was going to sorely enjoy it.

Raising my arms, I let the energy in my right arm spill through my body and spread to my other arm as well. "_Avitus!_" I shouted, feeling an incredible build up of energy around my wrists and ankles, and as I drew my hands apart as the power of the cuffs increased like a strengthening magnet, the red energy flared before there was a loud snapping sound, and a blinding light encased the ring as the cuffs, for lack of better terminology, exploded. Immediately, the energy going into my arm increased, and as I kept both arms raised, I could feel power crackling around my left arm as well, which I was able to realize even in my anger and uncaring of my own welfare wasn't a good idea. I drew the energy back into my chest and then into my right arm, and black and teal flames sparked around my arm, as if it were combusting; the flames only grew in power and height, rapidly, before I even released the Dragon.

However, some time during the power growth, I felt a pain beginning to grow down my torso, mainly on my chest, on the left side, and I felt blood begin to run down my shirt. I knew Nirvana hadn't attacked—she was still staring like a wounded animal in a bear trap at me, but the pain only increased and became sharper, and though the energy around my right arm never faltered, I felt weaker, and blood ran down the side of my lips in a small trail to my chin. Looking down, confused, I could only see the blood soaking through the fabric of my clothing, not the injury itself, as it appeared it had manifested by itself. Which shouldn't have been possible, save for...

­_The ofuda_, I thought suddenly, my eyes widening in horror. If Hiei no longer had control over the ofuda, did that mean…? I looked sideways at Hiei, the buildup of power in my arm finally faltering for only a moment, but Kurama wasn't meeting my glance, and my eyes widened in horror. "No," I whispered, feeling myself trembling, and then there was an explosion of energy in my arm, and I turned rapidly back to Nirvana, pulling my limb backward before thrusting it forward and bellowing, "_I'll kill you, wench!_" as the Dragon screamed and flared up from my arm, shooting toward the ram demoness. My vision was blurred by tears, and I was barely able to note that the familiar strip of blue aura was wrapping around the Dragon as it shoved Nirvana back. Its size increased, much larger than it had been the first time I had used it, and I nearly collapsed to my knees, not withdrawing the energy bait I used to summon it from demon world, more hoping than dreading that it would take the hook along with the bait. It did no such thing, however, and even as I heard Nirvana scream in pain, I couldn't feel it incinerating her—I knew in that moment that she would get away. Wounded badly, yes, but I would not be able to kill her.

My energy ran out, and the Dragon faded, and Nirvana was no where to be seen. The air of the arena, or what was left and had not been destroyed by the Black Dragon Wave, still crackled with my energy, and I didn't notice, but almost half of the crowd had been killed with the attack even though Nirvana had somehow managed to get away with her life.

"Oh…Oh _my_!" came Koto's voice, and I clenched my jaw, feeling hot tears sliding from my eyes, though now it was from rage as well as anguish. Nirvana had gotten away. I…hadn't killed her. It was then that all of my anger was ripped away and the only emotion that settled over my battered body was despair. I barely heard Koto and Suurii's voices as they shouted in unison, "Winner of the tournament, Team Ketsueki!"

My eyes narrowed in pain and grief. "I couldn't…" I limply fell to my knees. "I couldn't even avenge…" I forced myself to stand slowly, scraping my knees and relishing the burn of my skin being torn and I started to turn to where Hiei and Kurama were, but my legs gave.

Strong arms broke my fall, and I stared up in disbelief at two gorgeous crimson eyes. "Good job." Hiei showed his fangs as he grinned at me. "You passed."

I was unable to do much other than, as said before, stare at him; it probably took me a minute or two to again find the ability to speak. "You were testing me!" I cried, my voice still incredibly emotional. As well, tears were still streaming freely from my eyes. "…_Again_!" My voice cracked. Whether it was from shock, relief or simple annoyance, I couldn't tell.

"Hn." Hiei smirked. I almost started sobbing I was so relieved to see that arrogant smirk. "Of course I was just testing you. I trusted you could handle this by yourself, and I was interested to see if you would react similarly to Yusuke if someone you cared for was killed."

I sniffed once, rubbing at my eyes, then I shouted, "You over-pompous, uncaring _jerk_!" Of course, the anger in my statement lost its force as I ran to him and tackled him with an embrace, shoving him back to the ground and wrapping my arms around his neck tightly, unable to restrain myself from crying full-out any longer.

He had given a slight noise a surprise at the initial tackle, but now he just sighed heavily and growled, "You know, just because I pretended to be killed doesn't mean I pretended to be injured."

"Shut up," I muttered in a choked voice, but I couldn't help the huge grin that was spreading across my face.

Hiei allowed himself to be pinned for a minute or two, maybe because he was still weakened despite his acting, but then finally moved me a bit and sat up, letting me still have a near choke-hold on him with my arms in an embrace. "You can let go at any time," he reminded me, as if it was news to me. "I'm not going to disappear if you do."

"You scared me!" I spat at him. Again, even I couldn't take my own angered voice seriously. I was hugging him too tightly and I still sounded too relieved. "What the hell do you expect? That I'll just be like 'Oh, okay, he's alive. Whoop-dee-do, let's go home now' and walk away from you?"

Hiei smirked. "It's what I would do, maybe excluding the 'whoop-dee-do'."

I laughed, trying again in a futile attempt to dry my eyes. I wasn't sure if it was the relief that made me laugh, or the fact that I had just heard the great Hiei Jaganshi say 'whoop-dee-do'.

I finally realized that my chest no longer hurt, and I blinked, looking down at my still blood-stained shirt, and as it connected, I snapped my eyes over at Hiei and said, "Well, if you were okay, why the hell did you let the ofuda work?"

Before I could continue and rant any further, he answered with, "If you weren't as enraged with Nirvana as you were, you would have been killed by your own attack. In believing that I had been killed, or was close to dying, you ceased to care for your own welfare and thought only of the kill. It was that savagery that made the Dragon respond to you, and though it would have done so before, it did not kill you as well."

"Be…cause I was pissed off?"

"Because you were strong enough to handle it," he responded, giving me his 'You're so incompetent' look.

I blinked. "So not thinking of my own welfare is a _good_ thing now?"

With a sigh, Hiei reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose between his eyes, muttering, "I think you're missing my point."

I shrugged, trying not to strangle him any further with any more relieved hugs, and I also attempted to speak in a level voice when I said, "Well, it doesn't matter anyway. I did make the ofuda for the exact reason you used it for." I gave him a mild glare. "'Course you rarely let it be used that way."

"…Hn."

I felt another grin start to sweep across my face, and I looked away before Hiei could see it and roll his eyes at me for the umpteenth time.

From behind me, I heard Hiei speak again after a brief pause between us. "Did you honestly think that Nirvana could defeat me so easily?"

"Well, yeah, actually. You're a pretty fucking convincing actor," I muttered back.

I sensed him shift his position to stand, and, no longer holding onto him, I stood first, sticking out my hand to help him up. He glared at it for a moment like he was suspicious of it or something, and then he took it lightly and barely used it to help himself stand.

"I've realized something now that I've fought her more seriously," he said, not walking toward the rest of the group, who I hadn't realized 'til now were probably in on the whole fake-death/injury thing. I was definitely going to have to get some payback for that soon enough. "Some time between the first time I fought her many years back and now, she's grown quite a bit stronger."

I raised my eyebrows at him. "I guess it's kind of a given, but I'm gonna ask anyway: what do you mean?"

"It seems she lied about her class the night that you first met her."

"Uh…why? And what else would she be other than Special A-class?"

He shrugged lightly. "I'm not sure why she would lie, but she's obviously a Quest class. I'm not sure how I didn't see it before."

"Quest class? Wouldn't it just be Q-class?"

He narrowed his eyes at me in his You're-the-most-incompetent-thing-alive look. "Does it matter?"

I grinned. "I guess not." I recalled briefly that Karasu had been a Quest class. "So…what _is_ a Quest class, anyway?"

"It's fairly much the same definition as the Special A-Class—a demon that is not quite S-Class, or in some cases not even A-Class, that has special or unusual powers, but they are far more uncommon than Special A-Class."

"'Special A-Class'?" Kurama quoted as he walked over, joining us and looking rather casual despite his part in pretending that Hiei had been more seriously injured than he really had been. "Is that what you've been calling them, Hiei, rather than Super A-Class?"

Hiei glared sideways at Kurama. "You know full well that the demonic word for it can translate either way. Nirvana used Special A-Class when she fought Ketsue and I in the city, so I adopted the habit to make sure Ketsue didn't get confused." He glanced sideways at me and added, "because that happens often."

I twitched, but said nothing in response.

Yusuke and Kuwabara had joined us as well at this point, and I glared at them both in turn, knowing that they would realize the point of my look easily; they both avoided any form of eye contact and 'subtly' looked elsewhere. "So," Yusuke started, "with the assumption that Chichiro here—" ("Ketsue," Hiei and I corrected at the same time, but the detective continued as though we had said nothing.) "—has no intention of killing any of us for that trick, can we go to the hotel now and get our crap? I want to get the hell off this island and go home."

­_Go home?_ I thought, and those two words almost seemed foreign to me. _That's right…we have to go back, don't we?_

"Yeah, let's," Kuwabara agreed, and the two set off out of the mostly-destroyed stadium.

Kurama and Hiei left soon after, saying something about getting Hiei bandaged (I declined bandages for myself, saying I didn't need them immediately. None of my wounds were too serious. Kurama seemed like he wasn't in the mood to fight with me about it at the moment, so he just grudgingly agreed to waiting and left with Hiei.), but I remained behind.

The remaining members of the crowd left, as did Suurii and Koto (Koto actually came over to me before she left and complimented me on the attack and said it was "nearly as impressive as when Hiei used it in the last Dark Tournament that Urameshi's team was in."), and still I stayed there.

Even though Hiei was alive and I could tell he'd be fine, I still wished I could have been able to kill Nirvana. I still wanted to. I wanted revenge, even if only for her unsuccessful attempt to kill Hiei.

My thoughts were broken when I sensed a few familiar energies, and I closed my eyes tightly for a moment before gathering the courage to go speak to the shadowcats, who were all about a mile off in the woods.

When I arrived, none of the cats even looked at me save Spike. I wasn't sure if I expected or wanted attack, but none came, and he walked over to me slowly, stopping about five feet off from me. "Ketsueki." He nodded stiffly. "Congratulations on winning the tournament."

"Spike, you don't have to be nice to—"

I cut off when Hiei dropped down next to us, in his cloak again (He hadn't been wearing it during the fight against Nirvana, only his black shirt and pants.), and stood beside me.

The silver-haired shadowcat in front of me didn't sound hostile when he spoke to Hiei, apparently inferring his cloak. "I'm still not sure how that _doesn't_ look like a dress."

Spike cradled his own chin in his hand, deep in thought, as my eye twitched. "Was…that a compliment or an insult?"

Hiei blinked next to me, looking about as put-off as I was. "I think it was an observation."

"…Right."

There was silence for a moment, and I looked up as Kent, Asakari and Skyre began to walk away from our group, though Spike remained. In the back of my mind I wondered what they had done with Zerathus's body.

Spike spoke again, though this time directed at me. His voice still wasn't hostile, despite whom he was speaking to now, but its tone had changed and it was amused only in a sad, remembering sort of way, like when someone brought up a funny story at a funeral about the person lying in the coffin. "I'm sure if there's something after death, Zer's either happy he got defeated by someone this powerful, or he's plotting ways to come back and get revenge on you so I don't have to." He grinned, his eyes still lacking any of the humor and charm they used to have; they were still blank. "He would know that I could never honestly take revenge of you." He sighed. "Even so, if what happened with Zer hadn't gone they way it did, things would have never worked out between us." He grinned lightly, then looked over to Hiei briefly before his eyes returned to me, and he said, "You two are just too perfect for each other."

I felt my eye twitch, and I opened my mouth to retaliate, but Hiei muttered, "Don't," to me. I glanced over at him disbelievingly, wondering if some time after the last round if Nirvana had switched places with him (And there was always the possibility of him getting hit too hard when he fell.) However, his eyes were the right color, his demeanor was correct, and I could tell that it wasn't the ram demoness.

Even still, at his return glance that asked me what I was staring at, I said, "Okay, who are you and what did you do with Hiei?"

He raised his eyebrows, then replied, "I didn't mean anything by not allowing you to respond to that. It's simply my turn to kick the cat's ass—you took that job from me before."

I tried to suppress a grin, but didn't succeed. "Ah, I see. Well, then, be my guest."

Spike had watched the short conversation without comment, but now he started to turn away and walk back to his group. "I'm sorry," I murmured after him.

He slowed, and for a moment, I thought he'd stop, but instead he only mumbled back, "Your eyes have said that enough times. And I don't like it when you act like you are in debt of someone—inferiority doesn't suit you." His pace returned to normal, though his gait had a minor limp, and I looked away with a light sigh.

"I guess that's the last we'll see of him."

"For a while," Hiei agreed, finishing with what I had more hoped than believed. We stood in silence again for a minute or two, and finally he said, "We should get back to Kubikukuri. The imbeciles and Kurama will be waiting for us."

When we arrived, as soon as we stepped into the lobby a small, red and black bag was chucked at me, and I caught it with an 'oof!' as it nearly knocked the wind from me. I glared at the one who'd thrown it, which was obviously Yusuke, and then dropped my bag down into my left hand (My right arm was halfway sore again, but I didn't really have nerves in it at the moment, so I couldn't feel much of the pain. I hadn't looked at it, either, since the fight, and I didn't let myself—I doubted I'd be fond of what I saw.) as Hiei and I headed over to the table that Yusuke, Kuwabara and Kurama were seated at.

"Are you sure you have all of my stuff?" I asked, holding up my bag. "If you forgot anything when you packed it, I'll kill you when we get back to wherever we're going. Or on the boat, either works."

"We got everything," Yusuke muttered at me, "don't worry about it."

"So you already returned the room key?" Hiei asked, sounding humorously like my human father when we were leaving a vacation hotel to head home.

At the three-way simultaneous nod, I said, "You're all really _that_ anxious to get off this island?"

I earned only a shrug, and I sighed lightly, sitting down at one of the two spare chairs at the table, and Hiei sat on the other at the opposite end of it. As I leaned against the back of the seat, I gritted my teeth at a random, sudden pain. "Ah, fuck, my back hurts," I complained in a mumble, rubbing at it. I couldn't feel any wound, but the pain was directly over my spine, in the near perfect center of my back. I could feel Kurama's eyes on me, and I looked over at him, confused at the expression he gave me. It was almost curious. But then his eyes left me and briefly flickered to Hiei before settling back to looking frontward. I blinked, raising my eyebrows, but decided to ignore his response. (1)

"So, can we go now?" Yusuke spoke up. "I think the boats are boarding. And if they aren't, we can still get there early and punch our way to the front of the line to get on."

"Isn't that a charming idea," Kurama mumbled flatly, but began to stand.

I watched the four guys around me get up, and then I finally did as well, saying, "You guys go ahead. I'll catch up. I have to…do something first."

Hiei gave me a suspicious look, and I returned it with a small glare that said, 'And don't follow me.'

I wasn't sure if he'd heed the glance or not, but regardless, I turned and went out the spinning doors at the front of the hotel before the rest of them, and headed back toward the arena.

As I walked toward the chillingly familiar spot, I confirmed for the first time that the missing half of the arena was exactly what I had seen in my vision. Even through the similarities, I had to prove to myself that it hadn't been real, that it hadn't been an actual vision. Even if I still halfway believed it, I had to satisfy the half of me that wanted to and did trust Hiei still, and to do so I had to bring myself to where the vision had taken place and wait. Whether that waiting would be for my own doom or for nothing but relief was yet to be seen.

I waited several minutes, standing on the grass, my body still, and looking toward the arena. It was peaceful here now that the tournament was over, and many of the demons were already at the dock waiting for the boats to arrive to take them back to wherever they had been before the Dark Tournament began. When they were missing, it was quiet, and I almost thought I'd miss this island.

A long enough time had passed that I was satisfied that my trusting side had been correct—the vision was false. I had been manipulated by Nirvana after all, and now I could face Hiei without a scrap of fear or wariness. I almost felt foolish at ever believing in any degree of the 'foresight'.

It was then that I sensed a demon energy behind me.

"She was right. Your trust _did_ make you easier to kill."

As I turned, confused, and as I met two very familiar red eyes, an equally familiar sword was thrust into my chest. I gave a small noise of surprise and pain, but as the blade was withdrawn from where it had impaled my body and the form before me flickered briefly, I made no further sound to illustrate my pain, and my legs weakened beneath me and I fell onto my knees, uncomprehending.

With each beat of my pulse, the pool of blood around me widened, and somewhere in the back of my mind it registered that his sword had pierced through my heart, but the extreme agony of it was somehow drowned out by who had caused it. I slid my eyes upward blankly in disbelief, and was hardly able to focus on Hiei's face.

"You…" I weakly lifted my hand and gazed with clouded vision at the blood seeping down it. "…did this…" I paused to take in a ragged, pained breath. "…to me?" I couldn't tell if it was regret, concern or pity in his eyes, but whatever it was, it wasn't malice. My vision blurred completely, my eyes rolled back, and my form fell sideways just as I heard him say my name.

* * *

1—In case you didn't get this, it's to show that Hiei's wound from Nirvana really was pretty serious, because he can't completely control the ofuda. The 'fuck, my back hurts' refers to Hiei's back wound, which Ketsue has at the moment because of the whole lack-of-control over the ofuda. But he does still have enough control to not make her have the wound he received in the final round.

**Authoress's Note:** Like I said in the last chapter, it kind-of explains the vision. Kind-of. I mean, if it happens, that explains that it was real, right? Well, whatever. Don't hate me for that. Aaand if you do hate me for that, good. At least I got you to react to it. :3 Don't think anything of this fast update, by the way—when I posted the last chapter I had most of this one done already. I have a little bit of the next one done at the moment, but not too much, so don't expect another chapter as fast as this one.

On a nearly completely unrelated note, I'm considering joining the first eight or nine chapters into one chapter that I can put a note about being completely optional to read. After all, only a few important things happen in those chapters and its really not too related to Yu-Yu-Hakusho, but I greatly dislike changing anything about this fanfiction, so I'd rather not delete them entirely or change around how they're presented. What do you guys think?


	28. Killer's Conscience

**Authoress's Note (Possible Spoiler Alert!):** Later in this chapter, Hiei explains some things to Ketsue quite like in Chapter Twenty-Three: Truths and Trust (Or, as it is on fanfiction-dot-net, chapter twenty-four.), and some of those things could be considered spoilers. Of course, some of them are never mentioned in the anime, but even so, if you haven't seen the end of the series, don't blame me if you read something you didn't know. You've been warned.

**Disclaimer:** Neither Hiei, nor Yu-Yu-Hakusho is mine.

**Claimer:** Chichiro and Ketsue are mine, Kaze is BritKit, Aria is FoxWitch. While not all the characters are mine, all writing, storylines and concepts in this fanfiction (Save any YYH references) are (This includes Nirvana, Spike, all shadowcats, the shadowcat species, all of the opponents of the Dark Tournament this time around, Suurii, etcetera.).

* * *

"She thought it was me." 

"I know. But _you_ know that Nirvana's mind traps are convincing."

"But…" There was a heavy sigh, which sounded like it had been broken halfway, as if some form of restraint from something or to calm down. "…she thought it was _me_. I could never hurt her."

"I know," was the reiterated response, with stiff patience. Obviously this conversation had been had many times, most likely exactly the same. "Put yourself in her place. If you had seen what looked like her sword stab you, then looked up to find her there holding that same sword, what would you think?"

"But my sword wasn't even blood-stained. I would never so easily fall for that."

"Yes, and you know much more than she does about Nirvana. It would be simpler for you to see the truth because of that."

There was a rustle of fabric, sounding as if someone was leaning forward. "I only drew my sword because she was in danger. I was trying to kill Nirvana."

"I know." Again, the stiff patience. Seems this entire conversation had been repeated many a time. "We can clear this up as soon as she wakes up."

"And if she doesn't? She'll die thinking that I killed her…Again."

"She will wake up. Don't worry about it. Have more faith in my healing skills and her will to live."

"Kurama, she was _stabbed_ through her _heart._ How optimistic do you want me to be?" There was a second sigh. "Not to sound arrogant, but we both know that her main will to live is built around her love for me. She's told me that many times, though not always with words. If she thinks that I'm the one who did this to her…"

"She _will_ wake up," Kurama repeated. I could obviously tell who was who now despite my inability to differ voices, just by what they were saying. I could not, however, trust or distrust what Hiei was saying, simply because my thoughts weren't collected enough. I doubted that if Hiei used his jagan he could even tell that I was awake. My mind was near blank, and I could only hear what they were saying, not really think much into it.

The next time I regained consciousness, as I had passed out soon after that last conversation, I could feel that time had passed. Maybe a few days.

I heard Kurama's voice first. "Ketsue would love being in Japan this long."

"Yes, and it's a pity she's been unconscious and in agony for so long," Hiei growled back, almost sounding angry, "because being able to realize that she's in Japan is _so_ important."

Kurama sighed, shaking his head. "I was just pointing it out. No need to murder me over the comment."

I heard Hiei shift around, sitting back against something, and he muttered, "I know. She was looking forward to coming here."

My memory was clouded then, and I couldn't really focus on anything. I barely even recalled that Hiei had been the one that stabbed me.

I slid from reality once again, and when I woke next, I was able to open my eyes. I couldn't see anything at first, and my eyes stung, but then I was able to focus after a few moment of squinting. My memory wasn't as fuzzy anymore, and I was more aware of where I was, and I could sense that Hiei was nearby. I wasn't entirely sure how to feel—bitter, depressed, betrayed, fearful or angry. So I was simply emotionless for the time being, and I drew my arms back behind me, propping myself up with my elbows and the lower halves of my arms still on the mattress, and I slowly pushed myself into a sitting position. I didn't know how long I had been resting, or if I had been given some sort of pain killer, but my chest didn't hurt as badly as I would have thought it would have, and it was easier to sit up than I would have assumed.

I didn't look around me—I felt no curiosity or desire to know where I was. I didn't feel much desire for anything, really, save for a glass of water (My throat felt dry.) and to go back to sleep. I doubted the sleep would come easily, though, now that I was actually awake again. I had been asleep long enough.

I saw movement from my peripheral vision, and I looked sideways at Hiei without turning my head, and my eyes returned to looking before me; I said nothing. The pain on my chest was increasing, now, and I was barely able to keep myself from wincing. I closed my eyes for a brief moment, feeling almost sick to my stomach when the sensation only grew sharper and less bearable.

Then Hiei finally spoke, and I lifted my eyelids again. "…Ketsue—"

I didn't look at him, keeping my weary gaze on the wall. "You don't have to explain yourself to me," I said blankly.

I could feel him staring at me. "What!" he cried finally, nearly shouting. "You still think that was me?"

Finally, I shifted my focus to him. "And what else do you expect me to believe?" I mumbled back tonelessly.

He didn't respond, and his eyes flicked slightly as if he was considering looking away, but he kept my gaze. "How are you feeling?" he asked finally, in as even a voice as I supposed he could muster.

_Funny question coming from someone who just tried to kill me_, I thought, my mental tone as monotonous as my spoken one. _Especially when he nearly succeeded._ "I'm fine," I muttered quietly, biting back the strong urge to say 'Not that it matters' or 'And why the hell would you care?' though I itched to.

"You're in pain. I can see it in your eyes."

I looked away from his crimson gaze, unsure of whether I saw criticizing or sympathy in it; I didn't deny his observation, and only offered him a weak, detached shrug.

The silence began to annoy me, and so I asked monotonously, "Where am I?"

"We're in Kurama's home."

I looked over at him, mumbling in a still weakened, tired voice, "Kurama owns a house?"

I wasn't sure why he was staring at me the way he did, and for a moment I thought that it was because of my question, but when he answered with a query that seemed much like what one of my own would be, I realized that was only partially right. "How are you being so damn casual toward me if you think I tried to kill you?"

I shrugged, though the movement caused me pain; I didn't allow myself to flinch. "Obviously you failed. And you don't seem to want to try it again any time soon, or maybe I should say 'yet', so I have no reason to be anything other than casual. I'm sure I did _something_ to merit your desire to fucking stab me." My voice was completely toneless, but I could tell that my words had impact anyway.

Surprisingly enough, he didn't respond to me, though the weight of the silence told me that he badly wanted to say something but was biting it back.

"So," I said finally, "where is Kurama's house?"

"In Japan." His reply had been delayed for him, as he always seemed to answer questions like he had his answers pre-planned no matter what they were, even though for a normal person it would have seemed quick. His mind was obviously on other things, which wasn't a strange thought.

"Hmmph." I couldn't help replaying again and again in my mind the moment when he stabbed me. '_­She was right. Your trust_ did _make you easier to kill._' Nirvana had spoken with him earlier, at the cliff, about how my trust would make it simpler for him to be able to kill me. And I had actually told myself not to think anything of his lack or rebuttals against that. _Idiot_. "So I finally got to Japan, huh? And on such a cheery note no less."

Again, I received no reply. I was beginning to wonder why I was trying to hold up a conversation—he wasn't willing to help, and…well, why would I want to talk to the person who tried to kill me? I wasn't honestly curious about where I was, like I had said before.

My mind was refusing to even question what had happened. He hadn't been controlled, it hadn't been Nirvana; he had wanted to kill me and had tried. It was as simple as that, and though that little part in the back of my mind wanted me to hope for something different, I didn't allow myself to be optimistic toward the idea. I didn't even want to know his motives. I just wished with a passion that he had succeeded in his attempt. Or that I could at least go back to sleep and pretend it hadn't happened. I was so tired.

Everything ached, and _fuck_ did my chest hurt. Any pain I had experienced before seem completely insignificant compared to this, and I had to wonder how many times I had thought that—this _was_ the worst it got, right? I doubted anything hurt more than having a sword shoved through your heart. Which made me consider that I probably shouldn't be alive, and it almost seemed unreal that I was. I could understand faintly how I had lived through all the other wounds I had received since I had met Hiei, but this one was…confusing. By all logic I should be six feet under.

Then again, this entire situation held little to no logic, as did pretty much most of my life at this point. Hiei trying to kill me seemed out of place, as did his apparent new found remorse. I could feel a bandage around my torso, and what felt like a gauze pad over my wound both on my chest and where the blade had exited my back.

_So…I'm bandaged, and I'm in Kurama's house._ Those thoughts made me realize that Kurama must have known what happened, right? _Of course he does,_ I thought after a short while. _He and Hiei were talking about it before._ My mind wasn't very quick at the moment. _Then again, they were saying something about Nirvana's mind traps. I know the difference between Hiei and Nirvana when she's transformed._

"Ketsue."

_So he can make conversation by himself,_ I thought with mock surprise.

"Do you remember what happened?"

I snorted, but the movement made my wound ache again, and I winced before I answered. "Of course I do."

"Do you remember _all_ of what happened?"

I looked over at Hiei, finding myself barely curious as to what he meant. I asked anyway.

In response, he said, "Kurama is the one who kept you alive, which you've probably realized by now—" I hadn't, of course, but it made sense when I heard him say it. "—but before he came you were…" He cut off and didn't finish, and he broke eye contact with me.

"I was what?"

"…Smiling." He lifted his eyes, which seemed unwilling to do so, to meet mine. "Like you found humor in the whole thing."

I certainly didn't recall finding humor in it during the time I was able to remember. '_You…did this…to me?_' Oh, yeah, it was completely hilarious. "No, then, I don't remember everything."

"And yet you still believe that you know exactly what happened back there." His look was challenging.

I wanted badly to shout "fuck you" or to scream at him for betraying me, but I found myself unable to even try. I think I moved to hit him as a delayed reaction for what he had done and mocking me now, but I honestly don't remember. I felt the floor before I felt the contact, and I felt the blood before I felt the pain. As I slipped away from consciousness, I faintly heard his voice, though it had no volume to me, only tone. "Ketsue! _KETSUE!_"

* * *

"Why did you not simply tell her the truth?" 

Hiei gave a small 'hmmph'. "She wouldn't have believed such a convenient excuse."

"'Excuse'?" Kurama quoted.

"She believed that she could easily tell the difference between Nirvana and I; the ram wench conditioned her that way purposefully."

"I wouldn't think that Ketsue would believe Nirvana over you so easily."

There was a small sigh from Hiei. "Don't act like you honestly think I meant that Nirvana _told_ her she could tell the difference. She must have given her transformation purposeful flaws when Ketsue saw it, because I know for a fact that Ketsue thought that Nirvana was a whole lot more convincing when 'I' stabbed her."

"Shouldn't even say that sarcastically," Kurama admonished lightly. "You never know when she'll regain consciousness, or what she'll hear. As you said, it was bad timing when she heard you and Nirvana speaking to one another before the second round."

I felt the sensation of Hiei's jagan brush across my mind, but my thoughts were about as collected as they had been when I was first awake after I'd received the injury. I was amazed he could tell I was awake. "She's conscious now," he muttered to Kurama. "I'm not sure how much of this conversation she'll actually be able to understand or hear, though, in her current state."

There was a short pause between them speaking, and Kurama finally said, "Have you noticed that it seems almost as if she's allergic to metals?"

"Hn? What do you mean?"

"Just recently, the only type of wound she's really had any true reaction to were from any metal-made weapon. Steel and the like. Energy attacks faze her, but she recovers quickly. The only injuries that have a lasting effect are from metal."

Another pause, and then Hiei growled, "Somehow I doubt that the S-class demon's foot was made of metal."

Kurama gave a low chuckle. "Yes, that is the singular flaw that I have also found of my theory, but I'm sure you can understand why she reacted so strongly to that injury. It was no minor scratch."

"Hn."

"…Hiei, if she's awake and can hear us talking, perhaps she won't find the truth of Nirvana an 'excuse' the next time she's conscious enough for you to explain what happened to her."

"Perhaps."

Exhaustion and pain snatched away my focus again, and I slipped away from reality once more.

* * *

I was able to open my eyes again when I next awoke. I didn't bother moving into a sitting position, though, nor did I move my head to look around me. Again, I could sense Hiei nearby, and faintly I could sense Kurama, Yusuke and Kuwabara, but it felt as though they were a few rooms away. "Hiei?"

I felt his eyes move to me. "What?"

"It was…Nirvana?"

There was silence, and he sounded rather surprised when he answered next. "You believe us?"

"Not really, no," I murmured back, moving to look at him—he was across the room near the door, sitting back in a comfy-seeming red chair, and oddly enough it looked like he had a book in his lap—and finding my neck to be sore. "But I wanted to see what I'm supposed to believe, so I asked."

"Well, then," he growled back, his voice only halfway irritated, "yes, that is what you're supposed to believe." He closed the book he was holding and reached behind the chair to stick it on a bookshelf, though he never looked back to make sure he would be able to get it on there and yet somehow miraculously did. "I'm not sure what to tell you to believe for your own theory, however, as to exactly why I would have stabbed you if that had been me."

I glared flatly at him. "I'm sure you had a reason."

He glared back at me; whatever remorse he had before seemed to have evaporated, at least enough so that he could act indifferent or annoyed toward me. "I'm amazed you're so moldable," he said finally.

I raised a single eyebrow. "'Moldable'?"

"Easily manipulated. Your faith in me was broken with a simple transformation."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "Fuck you," I snarled in response, still unwilling to allow myself to listen to the back part of my mind that wanted to think that he was telling the truth.

"You know, it's rather insulting that you could even consider thinking that I'd try to kill you."

Again, my reply was a low, growled, "Fuck you."

He met my gaze again, his glance challenging once more. "Why are you so angry? I could understand if you're angry with me for not being able to stop Nirvana, but that isn't your reasoning. So what is it?"

"You tried to kill me!" I shouted. "What the hell do you _think_ my reasoning is?"

"It wasn't me who tried to kill you!"

"And how do you expect me to believe that?"

"Trust me!"

"I want to!" I amazed myself by crying back. I hated how choked my voice sounded, but it wasn't helpable.

"Then stop relying on your eyes and think about what happened! What do you think the mahdaegrah meant when he spoke with you?" '_Do not always trust your eyes_. _They are not as reliable as they may seem_,_'_ crossed my mind as he said it._ "_Why do you think Nirvana mentioned the vision so much? Why do you think she was so kind to you all the time? She had this planned!"

I squeezed my eyes shut, saying, "But I know how to tell you apart! That was _you_, not her!"

"That's exactly what she wanted you to believe, Ketsue." His voice wasn't as harsh, now, or at least it wasn't as raised. "She made you think that way so that it would be simpler for her to break your trust in me."

"But your tone was the same, your eyes were right…I mean, you even stabbed…Well, Nirvana did it in the same way you would, and she imitated your way of pulling the sword out perfectly…"

"Did you ever consider that she would observe exactly how I did every little thing that she knew you would recognize?" By his tone he knew that I was already sinking back into believing him, as was obvious by my dialogue, despite how much I didn't want to. Why I wanted to think that he had done it rather than Nirvana was beyond me—maybe the part of me that still thought it had been him was telling me not to trust him just to have the same thing happen again. "Shape shifters are no fools. As well, what she 'did wrong' the past few times she transformed into me could have simply been so that you would have less faith in her abilities, not honest mistakes."

"But…she was so weak compared to you in the fight when she was transformed. And none of that weakness was there when..." I had meant to say 'you stabbed me', but then I thought of changing it to 'she stabbed me', and finally I just finished with, "…I was stabbed."

"If she had been fighting honestly, no doubt she still would have been weaker than me, being that she wasn't using her own form, but it still wouldn't have been that extreme. She was only making herself seem weaker to make you further notice false differences between her and I, so that you would believe you could easily tell the difference between us."

"So, then, how can we be sure that some of my memories of you during the tournament aren't of her?"

"Nirvana's smarter than I like to admit; she wouldn't have risked you finding out how closely she could imitate me before she tried to kill you. If you had known how easily she could seem like me, and the extremity of how similar she could be, you would have been warier, and her mind game would not have been as easy."

I thought about it, and as it registered I asked, "She…intentionally lost?"

He let the silence hang for a moment, as I assumed he was thinking of a way to respond, and he finally said, "I wouldn't exactly say that. She may have planned her movements with the assumption that loss was a high probability for her, but I doubt she meant to throw the fight from the start."

I admit it—by this point I had extreme confidence in his story. Even so, not all of me believed it, and I was brought back to thinking that something similar to this had happened before. I gritted my teeth, glaring at the blankets over my leg for lack of anything better to look to. "First the manawyn, now Nirvana. I am so fucking _sick_ of being hurt by people who look like you!" I spat angrily.

Silence reigned again, and after about fifteen or twenty seconds he asked, "So you believe me, now?"

I didn't look to him at first, and I lifted my eyes to meet his gaze only when I opened my mouth to answer. "Not by choice."

He raised his eyebrows. "How can your own decision not be by choice?"

I narrowed my eyes at him again, though I was beginning to feel weary again and my glare was probably lacking the amount of intensity I wished it would have. "You know what I mean, jack-ass. I'm just…It's an automatic reaction to believe whatever you tell me." I clenched my jaw, lowering my eyes, and I muttered, "That entity or mahdae-whatever was right. I do follow you like a human."

It took him a moment to snicker, like he had considered whether it was wise or not to laugh at me right then, and he said in an amused voice, "It makes everything easier on my end."

I rolled my eyes up at him and said, "Oh, I'm sure," right before I felt myself start to loose consciousness, and I was out before I could warn him of it.

* * *

Kurama was in the room the next time I woke up. I couldn't sense Hiei anywhere, and I wondered if they had randomly decided that I needed to be baby-sat twenty-four seven and were taking turns.

Like Hiei, Kurama had a book in his hands when my eyes found him in the other chair in the room. There were two, which were identical and greatly resembled the one I had at home in my living room, and they were on either side of the door leading into the hallway. The door was open, now, but all I could see was a houseplant or two. My vision seemed to be near-sighted at the moment, and I couldn't tell much of anything outside the room I was in.

As always when I was tired or injured, I was slower and less observant then usual (Of course, I was close to the same way even when I was fully awake and not injured, though I couldn't think of the last time I didn't have some form of wound.), and it took my until he looked up at me for me to realize that he was wearing glasses. I didn't remember anime-Kurama ever wearing glasses; not to say they didn't suit him, as they did, but before he spoke to me he took them off and closed the book, which made me think they were probably only reading glasses. I'd never seen them before now, after all. "It's good to see you awake, Ketsue. How are you feeling?"

I smiled wearily at him. "Better now, I guess."

He grinned at me, and said, "I assume you mean because of Hiei's explanation of what happened." Then, rather bluntly he continued, "Because I'm sure you're still in pain; you haven't had enough time to heal yet."

My smile turned into a grin at that; I wasn't sure why, but I found it amusing how casually he talked about me being in pain. "Yeah, you're right. But I'd much rather feel this kind of better than to be more healed than I am now and still think Hiei was the one who did this to me."

He leaned forward onto his knees, saying, "I was actually surprised that you accepted the idea so quickly."

I shrugged, resisting my urge to wince. "Well, that's just because Hiei's the one who told me. If it had been anyone else, we'd still be arguing."

Kurama shook his head in what appeared to be wonder, still smiling lightly. "Even though he's the one you were fighting about."

"Heh, yup."

Speaking of Hiei, he walked in right them, his glance moving from Kurama to me to the chair he headed for. He didn't comment as he sat, leaning his elbow onto the right arm of the chair and propping his face up on his fist. It was an oddly relaxed position for Hiei—he didn't usually slouch. Actually, he looked tired, so I guessed that was the reasoning for it.

I looked to Kurama again, asking, "So, uhm, how am I alive, exactly? I forgot to ask Hiei about that."

"Well, I can't say I'm a surgeon, but you should know that I'm rather skilled with medical and healing plants. It's thanks to them that you're alive."

I blinked. "…Plants?"

"Yes. If you want specifics of what I used, it was something like a death plant: vines that grow through your body, but these have a different effect, obviously, and they aid you rather than harm you. They can be used like an internal needle and thread for wounds like yours."

"I have a killer plant growing through my body?" I asked, feeling my stomach twist at the thought, which seemed uncharacteristic of me, but his mention of the death plant made me think of this plant as more of a parasite than a form of healing. "Comforting."

"Healing," Kurama corrected. "They will die once they are no longer needed."

"And then what?"

"Your body will break them down. I assure you, they're completely harmless."

"So I'm a recycling plant and the aluminum cans are killer—" ("Healing.") "—weeds? Great."

"You're alive because of those 'killer weeds'," Hiei put in. "Stop complaining."

It didn't matter to me then whether it had honestly been Hiei or not who had stabbed me—I was still more easily annoyed. "Fuck you."

His eyes kept mine for only a fraction of a second longer before dropping, like he felt guilty for something just at my words. I would have apologized, but I wasn't sure what it would have been for—I had said 'fuck you' before to him (At least I thought I had. If I hadn't, I had still used harsh words against him, and 'fuck you' definitely wasn't the worst.), and I had just recently. I regarded him with a confused gaze before Kurama cleared his throat to get my attention, and I averted my eyes to the fox.

"You should probably try to get some more rest," he told me.

I sighed. I knew I'd probably get this 'more rest' suggestion many times before I healed. "Yeah, yeah, rest. Can I at least check out your house or something?"

Kurama blinked once, looking confused. "Check out my house? What for?"

"And do you honestly believe you can stand, let alone walk?" Hiei put in, his voice soft despite his use of his usual snide tone.

I felt my eye twitch, but I resisted any profanity-filled retaliations, and simply said, "At least let me go outside or something. Surely you of all people can appreciate the need to be outside, Hiei."

"And how do you suggest you get there?"

"By you carrying me," I said flatly, not requesting—it was more of an 'I expect you to do it now, or you will experience serious pain once I heal' kind of statement. I didn't really find any embarrassment in the idea of Hiei carrying me anymore; I had gotten over that a while ago. Maybe not completely, but it was pretty damn close.

"Well, you never said anything about me carrying you before, did you?" he growled back lightly, probably just to be argumentative. "You made it sound as if you intended on getting there by yourself."

"Well, now I'm not." I tried to resist a smirk as I said, "Now carry me, servant!" but by 'me', I was already snickering.

Hiei rolled his eyes, and stood. "You can carry her, Kurama," he muttered, and started walking away.

Automatically, I went to chase after him, growling his name, but Hiei had been right—I couldn't stand or walk very well, and as soon as I made the move to, I found myself on the floor. Kurama began pelting me with different variations of 'are you alright?' while Hiei just looked over with what looked like mild interest and concealed almost-worry (Because I really didn't think he was capable of actual concern, at least not for me. Maybe that was just my bitterness at Nirvana's transformation version of him carrying through.), and I simply mumbled, "That was so undignified."

In the end, Kurama demanded that Hiei try to be nice to me and somehow got him to carry me outside rather than the fox himself.

Kurama had a porch hammock, which I found quite enjoyable. It was darkening out, and very close to nighttime. I didn't ask what time it was, though, despite my automatic curiosity. If I was going to ask the time, I might as well ask the date as well; I wasn't sure how long I had been out. Besides, I didn't need to know either of those two things, since I didn't know when I'd leave or how long I'd be there or when the date would begin to matter again. I didn't really know much then, really, save for the fact that Kurama's hammock was very comfortable, and that I was glad for Hiei's company, even if I was still halfway paranoid over the whole stabbed-through-the-chest-by-someone-who-was-identical-to-him thing.

I was almost amazed that he stayed outside with me, not that I felt like complaining. We didn't speak for a while, until my wandering thoughts gave me the desire to ask something. "So, we won the tournament, right?"

"Yes. You were there—why do you need to ask?"

"Well, doesn't that mean we get whatever we want?"

He shrugged. "Yes."

"Well…who do we get it from?"

"Hell if I know."

"…M'kay."

He glanced over at me. "What would you ask for, even if you did know who to ask?"

I considered. Honestly, I could think of nothing. What _would_ I ask for? "I guess another chance to fight Nirvana," I decided after a long while of silence. "But I'd want it to be on my own terms, my own time, and by my own doing. I wouldn't want it from them."

"'Them'?"

"The people who run the tournament."

"Hn."

Again, my drifting mind brought to mind a question. Well, it wasn't really an honest question—more of a conversation-starter. Just a strange one. "…Kurama wears glasses?"

"I'm sure you're asking that because you saw them, so I don't really need to tell you the answer to that."

"Man…they left out a lot of stuff in the anime. Even minor crap like that." I bit my lip lightly as I thought. "I guess that means a lot is wrong in my fanfictions."

"Not to say that the mistruths in the anime are the only reasons that you have to change around certain aspects on your 'fanfictions', but yes, that is true."

I realized that this was the perfect opportunity for me to ask what I had gotten wrong in them so that I could change it—after all, unlike me, he had honest, full memories of everything and could tell me exactly what happened. "So, what did I get wrong, specifically?"

"For starters, Yusuke isn't a spirit detective anymore."

I blinked. "He's not?"

"He hasn't been for several years. When Enma found out—"

"Enma?"

Hiei's jagan entered my mind for a moment, to find what name I would recognize, and he said, "King Yama, according to the anime. As I was saying, Enma found out about Yusuke lineage, being a Ma-zoku—"

"Ma-zo—"

Before I could even finish quoting him, he said, "Demonkin. When Enma found out that Yusuke was a descendent of demonkin, he discharged him from being a Spirit Detective. Of course, he maintained the job for a short time even following that, but he quit soon after."

"But, what about when he helped Chichiro…?"

"Like I told you before," he responded with a shrug, "some of it was off. He did help Chichiro and I in a few situations, as did the fool and Kurama, but not as a spirit detective."

I grinned lightly. "Well, then, I guess I'll have to change around my fanfictions a bit, huh?"

As he always did when I used the word 'fanfiction' when referring to the life he had with Chichiro, he looked away and scowled the slightest bit, and 'hn'ed.

"But if that's the case," I said as I thought of it, "why do you always call Yusuke 'detective'?"

"Habit," he responded, looking briefly into the window over his shoulder, leaning back in a relaxed position.

"And…who was the Spirit Detective after him?"

"I never followed the matters of Reikai after Yusuke was no longer involved with them. Chichiro was a Spirit Detective for a short while, but that was really the only time I was informed of anything concerned with Koenma and his fools."

"Chichiro was a Spirit Detective?" I blinked. "And you make it sound like there was more than one."

"Enma became less and less involved in mundane human world matters after the Escque invasion began, and he mainly focused only on that. Thus he left Koenma in charge of all matters of Spirit Detectives."

"But I thought Koenma chose Yusuke…?"

"He did. But he did not have complete control over the situation, which he acquired after Yusuke."

I was fairly confused by this point. Didn't Hiei say something about Enma regarding Yusuke's detective career as a failure because of his demon blood? "Even though Yusuke failed or quit or whatever?"

"Koenma may have misjudged by choosing Yusuke because of his demon ancestry, but he didn't fail. I didn't see any of the other Reikai fools actually making a difference, even when they did try, in most of the cases Yusuke took on." He gave a light sigh, sounding like he was bored, then continued, "As I understand it, there were multiple Spirit Detectives once control was relinquished to the midget prince."

"More than one? That's…weird."

"Not really. Spirit Detectives were solely human before Yusuke, but at the time there were no particular ningens that stood out, so they resorted to demons and other non-humans with impressive strength."

I propped my chin on my hand, leaning over onto it, turning my eyes to the other window and wishing I wasn't so near-sighted right then so that I could see what Hiei was looking at. Kurama, Yusuke or Kuwabara must have been inside the room. "Why couldn't they just wait for a strong human?"

"Waiting was never one of Reikai's greatest talents."

"So who's the Spirit Detective now? Do you know?"

"There isn't one," was Hiei's flat response.

I blinked. "Say what?"

"The closest thing to a Spirit Detective would be you and I, and the three in the other room. We are the strongest force on Spirit World's side, and probably the only ones fighting actively against Makai's 'expansion'."

I didn't notice it then, but Hiei had never before mentioned that he knew the reasons behind the fighting; the Mahdaegrah had told me, but he had never explained it to be before. "What about the other Spirit Detectives? The ones who were Spirit Detective at the same time as Chichiro."

"They're all dead."

My eyes widened. "Dead? But…I thought they were strong."

"Chichiro was strong," Hiei growled, "and she's dead. It just takes someone stronger to kill them."

I flinched, realizing far too late that I had touched upon a sore subject. Never the less, I mumbled quietly, "Like you."

"And Nirvana, and the countless other A-class and S-class demons who hate human world as much as most demons do."

A long silence passed between us before I finally spoke up again, ever persistent to learn how much of my fanfiction had been wrong, and how much of the anime was correct or incorrect. "So…what about you, Hiei?"

"What about me?"

"Was there anything in the anime or in my fanfictions that's wrong about you?"

"Well, how much do you know?"

"Well, I know I read somewhere online that you were the Forbidden Child of the Korme, or something like that."

His eyes had snapped to me as soon as I began to say 'forbidden child'. "Koorime," he corrected, his tone sounding stiff, but not too much, like he was trying to keep his voice relaxed. "That's true."

"And I also read that you worked for Mukuro, or something."

"I was her successor and second-in-command when she still had claim of part of Makai, but I didn't really work _for_ her after the Demon World Tournament. I did work under her, though."

"…Demon World Tournament?"

He looked at me like he was considering something, and then he asked after a short pause, "You really don't know much about me or my past, do you?"

"…Not really," I admitted quietly, though for some reason that I couldn't put my finger on, I felt almost insulted by his question.

Hiei gave a low sigh, and muttered, "Well, then, you'd better listen well. I'm not going to repeat any of this."

* * *

"…You…had your…arm cut off?" I shuddered. "And you've _died_?"

"I died twice because of Mukuro."(1) He sounded more annoyed than anything. "But you'd be amazed what she's capable of doing in the ways of healing and resurrection."

"Did you love her?"

"Yes." He paused for a moment, then said, "But there are different meanings to that. I never wanted a romantic relationship with her."

"Say 'love'," I said suddenly.

He glanced up at me. "What?"

"Just say it."

He raised a single eyebrow, then repeated the word, looking mildly interested in my odd request; maybe 'interested' wasn't the right word—more like curious.

I grinned sheepishly, then said in reply to his unspoken question, "Never mind." The quiet didn't last long. "So…why did you stop working for her? I mean…you belonged there. Isn't that what you wanted?"

"Belonging wasn't enough," he responded in a toneless voice. "It was for some time, but…I grew restless again."

I could understand that—I wasn't sure what I'd do if I ever had to return to a 'normal' life.

My smile dropped after a moment. Even though it had been about thirty minutes since he had explained what had transpired in the ice world, I still found myself drawn back to thinking of what the ice maidens had done to him. Rather than telling me out loud what had happened besides the general concept of why having a male child was a 'sin' to the Koorime, he had allowed me to see his memories of when he was a child using his jagan. I had considered that it seemed strange that he let me see inside his mind, but then again, it was probably easier for him than actually saying any of it out loud. "I still can't believe what they did to you," I mumbled after a while.

He knew what I meant easily, and he growled, "They are a timid, fearful race. Anything out of the ordinary or breaking the laws of their society is 'evil'. My existence just happened to be the greatest transgression of all the 'evils'."

I shook my head slowly, not even sure of how to respond, my eyes on the wood of the porch. "But…damn. You were just a kid. It wasn't your fault that your mother went against—"

"I know that. You needn't remind me, I've had several hundred years to consider that."

The bitterness in his voice made me wish I hadn't said anything. I wasn't too surprised when he stood, muttering something about going back inside and asking if I was coming.

"No," I told him, not bothering to jestthat he would have to carry me anyway and that asking if I was coming wasn't really an intelligent question. "I'll stay out here for a little while longer."

It was fully dark out, now, and my eyes were far worse off than they had been before; I knew it wasn't just the lighting that made them worse, and I figured that it wouldn't take long for me to have another blind flash. I really wished I could see—I was in Japan, and I had wanted to be here since…well, since I started liking anime. Because I had to admit to myself that liking anime was my reasoning for wanting to come to Japan. Kurama's house was very western styled, though, and I had to wonder how much of what was shown in anime was correct—he obviously didn't live in a paper-walled temple like half of the characters in manga and anime.

I wasn't really sure how much time had passed since Hiei had gone inside or to the roof or a tree or wherever he had gone—I assume about a half hour—but it didn't feel like it had been too long when Yusuke came out onto the porch. He sat on a chair somewhere close by, though I couldn't tell where thanks to my failing eyesight. Really, the only reason I recognized him was because of his energy, and to confirm it, his voice. "Aren't you cold?"

I didn't look over at him, still gazing out with what little sight I had into the night. It was peaceful here, and quiet. "Not at all." I looked toward Yusuke, though his face was relatively formless to my eyes at the moment, especially when my partial blindness was worsened by the darkness. "You should know that demons don't get as cold as easily as humans."

"I thought Kurama said you were done being emo?"

I blinked at him, or at least in his general direction, and asked, "Since when does Kurama say 'emo'? …And how was I being emo?"

Ignoring my first question, he answered, "Well, your voice is all…flat. Y'know, emotionless."

I decided against mentioning to him that I thought he was kind of confusing 'emo' when I replied. Feeling quite a bit like Hiei, as he always used the excuse I told Yusuke right then when I asked him a question during training, I said, "I'm a demon." To make it obvious that it was a sarcastic excuse, I added, "We don't use tone. It makes us seem more bad-ass."

He gave a small chuckle, then said, "And here I thought you were a rebel. I mean, you usually use tone." He shook his head, or so I assume was the movement I saw. "But, no, you _had_ to go with the other demons and be toneless, damn it."

I gave a small smile, snickering through my words as I told him, "Shut up."

I sensed him stand, and he said, "Well, I'm glad you're okay, and breathing, and that kind of thing, but unlike you, I _am_ cold, and I don't know where the hell I left my jacket. So I'm going back inside."

I grinned lightly, "M'kay"ing at him, and I didn't mention that I thought he had probably left it wherever he had abandoned his motorcycle in the middle of nowhere before the tournament began.

Soon after he went inside, I found myself tired yet again, and almost directly after that realization, I dozed off, still lying on the hammock.

* * *

I noticed the pain on my shoulder before I noticed the pain on my chest when I opened my eyes. The light blinded me for a moment, and I squinted at the sky—sunrise. But the pain I had previously mentioned was rather distracting. My shoulder hadn't hurt that badly in a while, though that wasn't to say that my chest didn't hurt rather badly as well. _No,_ I realized, _I just haven't noticed it for a while._ Then I realized that I felt…different. It only took me a moment to realize that I was in my human form, and I didn't bother to consider exactly why it had happened and immediately shifted back into my demon form. The pain and sensation of hunger I had felt in my human form dulled, or in the case of the hunger, it disappeared completely as soon as my body changed.

"Is it really that disturbing to you to be in your original form?"

I glanced backward at Hiei, realizing for the first time that my eyesight had improved. Not by much, but enough so that I could make out his expression. He looked bored. "Would you enjoy being human?" I asked in response, my voice raspy. I still felt tired, though I knew I had gotten more than enough sleep.

In answer to my question, I only received a 'hn,' but directly afterward he said, "We're leaving for your hometown today."

I blinked up at him, still lying down—I hadn't moved since I woke. "Already?"

"It isn't as easy as you seem to think to trick your humans with my jagan for such extended periods of time, especially not when you're this far from them. If we return to America, it will be much easier."

"Oh, I see." Honestly, I had completely forgotten about my family for a while. Well, maybe not entirely—thoughts of them brushed my mind once and a while—but I didn't really think about them as much as I would have guessed I would.

As if reading my mind, Hiei spoke again, asking, "Don't you ever miss your family?"

I shrugged. "Not really. I miss my pets more."

He looked almost confused, then he said, "Your humans have always been close to you, and you to them. Why don't you miss them?"

I shrugged a second time, leaning my head sideways on one of my raised shoulders. "I don't know. I guess I know that they aren't my real family. Besides, I would much rather be here with you, so I guess I see it more as a choice between them or you when I leave, and that's an easy one to make for me."

He studied me with an unreadable expression for what seemed like a long time before he shifted his gaze sideways, his lips parting slightly as he gave another quiet, 'hn.'

We left sooner than I had assumed; apparently, Hiei had only been waiting to leave until Kurama had found the correct rift-tear that would get Hiei and I 'home.' He didn't even wait to say bye to Kurama, Yusuke and Kuwabara.

Thanks to my injury and lack of energy, I was pretty much unable to walk by myself, still—getting all the way to a rift-tear on my own was out of the question. Hiei had to carry me, as was often the case, though I definitely didn't complain. As soon as he picked me up, I got comfortable, leaning against him and closing my eyes, and I was out before it even crossed my mind to ask how long it would take to get there.

* * *

1—I've seen the entire Yu-Yu-Hakusho series and I know he only dies once, and it's questionable then if he even really died before Mukuro healed him, but this is just inferring that something happened after what they showed in the anime. >. Stuff that I didn't bother to mention in Voices of the Lost Realm. …/boring explanation

**Authoress's Note:** If you're wondering why the chapter title is "Killer's Conscience" even though Ketsue wasn't actually killed, I thought it was fitting despite that fact, and it was the title of an older fanfiction of mine that has since been taken down. I loved it enough that I had to use it here.


	29. Home Sweet Hell

**Disclaimer:** Neither Hiei, nor Yu-Yu-Hakusho is mine.

**Claimer:** Chichiro and Ketsue are mine, Kaze is BritKit, Aria is FoxWitch. While not all the characters are mine, all writing, storylines and concepts in this fanfiction (Save any YYH references) are (This includes Nirvana, Spike, all shadowcats, the shadowcat species, all of the opponents of the Dark Tournament this time around, Suurii, etcetera.).

* * *

I was aware that I had slept what would be considered a full night's sleep to a human when I opened my eyes and found myself still in Hiei's arms. It was daylight out, and above me I could see a phone line, and every few seconds two or three phone poles. Blinking and adjusting my eyes to the light, I lifted my head, which had been hanging back in a rather uncomfortable position, and looked up at Hiei's face.

"Where—?"

"We still have a few hours before we return to your humans," he told me before I could even ask. "Where we are now isn't important—I doubt we'll ever return here."

I looked sideways, which was forward to Hiei, and out at the road in front of us. Oddly enough, it looked like he was running on top of an extremely thin fence that seemed impossible to balance on; it was made of stone. The road was roughly paved, and the grass alongside it was rather wild and overgrown.

With a small yawn, I shifted around a bit, cracking my neck sideways and yawning a second time only seconds later.

I was satisfied with eyeing the land as it went by, much faster than while in a car, and watching the scenery slowly change; it seemed this place was rather isolated—in an entire hour, I only saw one car on the road, which Hiei leapt into the trees to avoid getting in sight of.

A short while passed since I had seen the vehicle, and I looked up at Hiei, asking quietly, "What now?"

He glanced down at me briefly, his eyes meeting mine for only a few seconds before returning to looking ahead. "What do you mean?"

"I mean…the tournament is over. What now?"

He gave a slight shrug, his arms moving beneath my shoulder blades and knees. "The demons will soon recover their vigor that they left at the tournament, and Nirvana will begin opening rifts between demon and human world once more."

I blinked, narrowing my eyes at nothing in particular, and then asked, "You mean we accomplished nothing there? The tournament was for nothing?"

"Nothing at all."

"…Great."

"If you'd like to be optimistic—though I warn you, it isn't my style and I can't say I'll be too great at it—you did learn that you truly do have the ability to foresee the future."

I sighed lowly again, agreeing, "I guess. And I trust you again and I've learned not to even start to trust Nirvana. Ever." I bit back the urge to put in that I also learned that 'Things aren't always what they seem' was a valid point.

His torso moved the slightest bit against my side as he chuckled. "I would have thought that would be a given, not to trust Nirvana."

"…Shut up."

Another twenty minutes or so of silence—or silence besides the occasional sound of Hiei's feet tapping down on whatever surface he was running on (it changed often.)—passed before I sensed a familiar type of energy: a rift. My eyes lifted upward as the sky began to tear in an arcing motion, heading back in an almost oval shape, but stopping right before the two tips of the rip touched. "Hiei, look. It's a horseshoe rift." I pointed outward at the sky.

"'Horseshoe rift'?" he quoted.

"Uh…yeah. You know, the kind shaped like a horseshoe."

"So I gathered. But when did you randomly decide to name the types of rifts?"

"I don't know," I mumbled, uncomfortable for an unclear reason.

"Hn. We should go close it. Are you—" He cut short, paused for a moment, then muttered, "Never mind. I shouldn't even ask if you think you're able to close a rift right now—you'll most likely say yes, whether that is the case or not."

I snorted. "I'm fine. Jeez."

"Yes, perfectly fine," he agreed, his voice lathered in sarcasm. "That's why you still can't walk on your own."

"And that's my fault?" I mumbled.

He didn't answer, but his direction changed and we headed toward the rift.

I found myself muttering a very similar chant to what I normally used for other rifts; it was only slightly changed. This rift closed easily, or shall I say quickly. It still drained enough of my energy that I required rest again, and I felt myself loosing consciousness with barely enough time to even tell Hiei I'd pass out. I felt him move me so that I was leaning against him, but he didn't respond (At least not in time. If he did, I was out before I could hear it.).

* * *

"Ketsue."

I felt myself being shaken lightly, and I uttered a muffled groan and looked up at Hiei, feeling stiff and sore. He was still holding me, but the air I was breathing now seemed familiar, and I recognized the scents of my 'hometown'. "Mmm? What?"

"We're at your house."

"And?"

"And you have to stay quiet when we get inside. I have to…'edit' a few of your humans' memories before they can know that you're home."

"M'kay." I was still rather tired, but I figured I had rested long enough from the rift closing and that I was just tired in general. I realized when my eyes caught a dark spot on my shirt that my chest was bleeding again, and I didn't bother to ask or wonder why—it happened often when I was injured. My wounds just randomly started bleeding again. Even though if the injury on my chest tore open again I'd probably be in serious trouble thanks to blood loss, I wasn't worried—it seemed like it was only a small cut along the wound.

Hiei ducked into my room through the front dormer rather than the side window like he normally did. Stepping off of my desk and walking to my bed, he lowered me onto the mattress and disappeared from my sight. Even if I couldn't sense him, I would have known that he was back in his tree.

"What, not gonna tuck me in?" I jested quietly, sliding under the covers that felt surprisingly welcoming.

I heard a small clatter on the stairs, and my door was pushed open slowly; when I heard claws clicking on the hardwood floor, I felt myself grin, and I sat up and lowered my arms to grab my dog and pull him up onto the bed even though he could manage by himself. As expected, my cats didn't bother coming to see me, but as always, Louie was enthusiastic at my being home.

I gently pushed him to the side and stood to close my door all the way, shutting it as softly as I could.

My room was silent and dark and warm from the summer air flowing through the windows, and the scents of it gave me the feeling of déjà vu rather than one of familiarity. I could faintly hear my rat snuffling around in his cage and I wondered exactly how he stayed fed if my parents didn't even remember I existed when I was gone. Walking over to his cage, I opened the metal door and reached in to pet his albino fur, grinning as he peered up at me with his red-pink eyes.

I realized by the previously-mentioned silence that Hiei had never answered me, whether by a 'hn' or an actual response. I turned to the window, finding myself smile lightly when I realized he was already asleep. _Falls asleep fast,_ I thought, snickering quietly to myself and walking back to my bed after sliding my rat's cage shut.

The feeling of my pillows and the stuffed animals that I'd decided to leave behind during the tournament was all too welcome, and I fell asleep quickly and easily.

* * *

It took me a moment after I woke to remember where I was. You wouldn't think that in about a week that I'd gotten used to Kubikukuri, or that in the few days I'd spent at Kurama's that I'd found myself less confused at being there than when I woke here. All the same, it only took me a few seconds to realize that I was 'home', and I stretched, wincing at the movement as I was used to doing at this point.

I yawned, squeezing my eyes shut before opening them and standing, heading for the door.

"Wait, Ketsue."

I glanced backward at Hiei, my arm still extended, my hand a few inches away from the doorknob. "What?"

"You can't let your mother see you, yet. Don't go downstairs."

I blinked. "Huh?"

"She hasn't realized you're back yet. I made her believe that you will be arriving today from a friend's house, so you can't just show up from your room."

"Why couldn't you just make her think I've been here the whole time?" I muttered, about to add that his jagan should be strong enough, but he answered before I could.

"False memories would be tedious because of the fact that I'd have to give them to anyone who hasn't seen you lately. It'd be harder for your humans to believe them if I didn't. If I don't take at least a few of the days in which you were gone and change them into 'sleep over's or 'get together's, she'll end up with more memory loss than you'll want her to." He paused, not bothering to say that 'she' was obviously my mother, then added, "I'll do the same to your human father when he arrives back from his commute."

I sighed heavily, sitting on the bed again and careful not to make too much noise in doing so. "Alright…so amuse me."

He blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Well, I hate being confined to my room, so…I have to find something to do. But being that I can't really _do_ much, talking will have to suffice for now."

His eyes remained unwavering on me for such a long time that I found myself uncomfortable under his gaze for the first time in a while, and I said, "Okay, what now? You're staring at me."

He shrugged and looked sideways like he'd done nothing. "You still haven't noticed that you just walked, have you?"

I blinked. "…Walked?" I looked backward at the door, then grinned, laughing sheepishly. "Yyyeah, I guess I did. Heh."

Hiei rolled his eyes, muttering, "You have the observational skills of a human going through Alzheimer's disease."

I grinned. "Yeah, yeah, shut up. How do you even know about that?"

"Kurama's human mother has some strange paranoia that she's going to get it someday. Kurama just comforts her by saying he'd probably have it too by the time she gets it."

I raised my eyebrows. "O…kay. You make it sound like Kurama's an old man."

"Well, I would think he's at least thirty-five, maybe older. I'm not entirely sure what the human version of 'old' is."

I snickered lightly, thinking of how many people I knew that he could have pissed off with that comment, since he was acting like thirty-five could be considered old. "That's middle-age. Not old." Humor aside, I continued, "He told me he was twenty-three."

He shook his head. "No, Kurama's human form is past thirty. I don't know his exact age."

I blinked. "Then why does he look so young? And why did he lie?"

"Because he knew you'd ask what you just did. His body stopped aging in appearance when he was twenty-three, and so he simply tells people that is his age to narrow down confusion. It's the exact same as the fact that I'm hundreds of years old and I don't look more than thirty."

"'More than thirty'?" I quoted. "You don't even look past twenty-five." He gave me a skeptic look. "Well, you look twenty-five, just not over."

"Hn."

I looked out the dormer window, but I couldn't really see much from my bed save a few branches of one of the trees in my front yard. I found myself swiftly bored again. "So, how old are you anyway?" I turned a quick glance at him.

"Five-hundred and sixty-two," he responded, his tone sounding like he had known the question ahead of time. I figured I was predictable enough that he probably _had_ known it.

"Five-hundred and sixty-two," I quoted. I would, of course, mess this up whenever asked. My mind told me he was five hundred and sixty-four, not sixty-two. He watched me with a suppressed scowl as I twirled my necklace chain—I had grabbed my necklace from my nightstand to entertain myself—around my finger. "Wow, take away five-hundred and you're still a geezer." I slowed the twirling only because it was pissing him off, but I had to fidget or I'd go out of my mind with boredom.

"Careful, Ningen. This 'geezer' can still sever your head before you can even hope to blink."

I grinned at him with false sweetness. "Now, you could never do that to me. Who'd be around to keep you out of trouble?"

Hiei raised a single eyebrow. "What do you mean? If you were dead I'd successfully manage to never get into trouble ever again." He rested his hand casually on his katana hilt, but the gesture came off loud and clear to me anyway. "Now that I mention that, the idea seems quite welcoming. Why don't you try and piss me off and give me a reason to remove your skull?"

I just grinned at him again, then leaned my head against the wall and closed my eyes with a light sigh.

"How is your wound?"

I didn't open my eyes, but I let a small smile slide across my lips. "Don't go asking that all the time, or you'll start sounding like me." I dropped my smile and shifted into a less painful position, then decided to lie back down. "It's okay. Still doesn't feel that great." I turned to him and opened my eyes. "Can we go somewhere? Do something? I'm going to go out of my mind with boredom if I don't find some way to get out of this bed."

"Ketsue, you were stabbed through the heart less than two weeks ago. Be thankful it's still beating." He wasn't meeting my eyes, and his own were cast out the window. "Moving around right now would only aggravate your wound, and fighting is out of the question."

"I know, but I never said I wanted to fight. I just want to leave here." I closed my eyes again and let myself slump into a comfortable limpness on my pillows. "I don't like being cooped up. You know that. Even when I'm not injured I don't like to stay here."

"Hn. Just let yourself recover for a few more days and I'll consider taking you somewhere. But there's no way in hell I'm letting you leave and run around on your own."

I knew he meant walking by myself, not going off by myself, and nodded. "Fine. But you better not make me stay here for very much longer, or you'll have to fight with me to keep me in bed. See how _that_ aggravates my wound."

* * *

It was dark out again, and by my cable box's clock around seven-thirty, when Hiei told me that I was supposed to be 'arriving home' from someone's house, so I had to leap out the front window of my room and walk from up the street. I shifted as soon as I hit the ground into the human form that my parents would better recognize. My demon form really wasn't very different, but all the same, I didn't want them to notice _anything._

As soon as I was about two feet onto the front yard of the house and turning to walk toward the porch, I could sense my human mother waiting just inside the door. I barely felt any form of sentimental gladness at seeing her again, but even so, I still felt some and I had to choke down a smile.

"Rache, you're home!" She came forward to hug me as soon as I opened the screen door, and I winced at her less-than-gentle assault, glad she couldn't see my face (It was over her shoulder). "Oh, I miss you when you go on these over-nights, now." Her hug tightened, earning a small noise of pain that I doubted she could hear from me, before she released me.

* * *

I kept myself mildly amused the rest of the evening, only seeing her a few times, and when it finally came time that I wanted to go out and try to fight again (Or at least get out of the house for a bit, if Hiei didn't agree to letting me fight.), I decided to go say goodnight to her and pretend to go to sleep before leaving.

Walking into her room upstairs, I was barely able to meet her look when she lowered the book she'd been reading and patted the mattress next to her to indicate that she wanted me to sit beside her. I felt guilty for some reason, now. The emotion had been completely spontaneous.

My mother opened her arms in an invitation for a hug, and I bent forward only halfway willingly to return it.

"I feel like I haven't seen you for days!" she cried, hugging me tightly again.

I let the silence hang for a few seconds before gathering the courage to say, "That's because you haven't."

She withdrew from the hug, which I had loosely returned, and looked at me oddly. "What?"

_This is it,_ I thought, trying not to think of the fact that Hiei would kill me for it if I continued. _Although_, I considered, _I shouldn't use that expression now, should I?_ I hadn't planned on it before, but I had to—I had to tell her everything. "I was too busy in demon world getting stabbed to be here with you, human."

She just stared at me for long thirty seconds, then said, "What?" again.

I sighed, forcing myself to meet her eyes. "I said I was in demon world." I shifted into my demon form, gaining about a half-inch, and even though I had already been taller than her, I now felt like I towered over her even though we were both sitting down. I guess that was more from her cowering than my height change. "I've been fighting demons for the past few weeks and not living here with you and Dad."

I took another deep breath, trying not to notice that she was leaning back, away from me, and continued. "Not that it's only been a few weeks. I mean, not that I've been fighting them—the demons—for only a few weeks. I do it pretty much every night. And I have been for about two months now."

She was still staring at me silently, not bothering to try and comment, but I could almost _see_ the thoughts racing through her mind. If I hadn't shifted, I knew she would only think I was making it up, that I was crazy or that I was playing tricks on her. But now she looked rather convinced—for her sake, though, I had made my eyes stay the same and not revert to cat-slits. I didn't think she was ready for that large of a physical change on top of all of this.

After a long silence (I didn't bother continuing on blindly until she at least responded to me; I certainly wasn't going to mention Hiei or the fact that he was the person an anime character was based on yet.), she finally opened her mouth to speak. Her voice was soft, fearful…afraid. Of me, her daughter. "What…are you talking about?" She sounded almost panicked.

I let an easy grin slide across my lips. "What?" I asked, my voice calm and collected, smooth, but inside I was writhing with the knowledge that she could never know that this had been real. I stood, stepping back a few feet and standing in front of her bed. "You haven't figured it out yet?" I raised my arm, putting my hand out palm-up, my fingers poised to snap, and said, "This is just a dream." My middle finger snapped against my palm, and I was gone from her sight before she could open her eyes from her automatic blink.

I don't even remember how I got outside in the front yard so quickly with my wound, but I when I concentrated, I could sense that Hiei had made her loose consciousness as soon as I'd left.

"That was reckless. What were you thinking?"

I just smiled sadly, not looking at Hiei, who was standing behind me on the grass. "I guess I thought she would understand."

"Just because she thinks that she is your mother does not mean that she would ever understand any better than any other human."

I looked down, starting to walk down the street, wondering where I could go for the night; I didn't want to go back to my house yet, not even if Hiei could make her forget that. "Did you see the way she pulled back when I held out my arm?" I sighed heavily, putting my face in my hands and holding it there for a moment, my feet stopping as I stood in the middle of the street; luckily no cars were driving by at the moment. "She was afraid of me. Just like that woman we helped. Just like that man I killed." I opened my eyes and looked over to him. "Why do they fear our kind?"

"They're simple-minded and one-sided about species," he responded. "You should know that by now."

"But I've lived with that woman for _thirteen years_ now!" I stabbed my finger accusingly in the direction of my house. "And I wasn't afraid when I found out that I was a demon!"

He smirked at me. "Because you are one," he commented with an inner amusement I couldn't possibly see reasoning for. "She isn't a demon, and if she were told she was one, she would be afraid."

"Or disbelieving," I muttered.

"You know full well that it would all depend on who would tell her."

I growled under my breath, then said, "Well, she isn't a demon, so it doesn't matter." I sighed again, more of a frustrated noise now. "Sometimes I wish she was."

* * *

I returned to the house early the next morning and laid in my bed without sleeping, waiting for a good time to be able to go downstairs without it being 'suspicious' that I had woken so early. I had spent the night in the woods behind the high school, as even though there were no good branches to lie in, there were random platforms in the trees for some sort of sports training used during the school year and in summer practice sessions.

When I arrived downstairs, I avoided my mother for a short time before she finally caught up with me in the sunroom; as she passed, she said, "I had the strangest dream about you last night," shaking her head, "but I don't remember what it was."

I dropped my gaze before she could turn and meet it, and I muttered, "I see," and stood. "I'm going to go for a walk, okay?"

"Walk where?" She didn't sound like she wanted me to leave, and she had that tone in her voice that told me that she was slightly offended that I was leaving now, as soon as she started talking to me.

I just shrugged, and left behind her protesting voice as I walked out the front door.

_Where do you plan to keep running off to every time she speaks to you?_ came Hiei's voice in my mind.

_I don't know._ After a slight pause, and as soon as I reached the main road that my street was off of, I asked him, _Can we go spar or fight? I need something to do, even if I am still injured._

_You sure you want to fight me? I might turn on you._

I blinked once, not getting it for a moment, but when it finally connected, I sighed lightly and returned, _Okay, I may have deserved that. But, come on, Nirvana and her mind-traps aside, can we?_

_Sure._ Even in his more emotion-lacking mind tone, he sounded pleased by my response and I couldn't help but be annoyed. _Do you have any ideas as to where to go?_

_Do I ever?_

_That's a worthy point,_ he commented, and suddenly, just as a car passed, I felt myself pulled upward and into his arms, and I sighed.

"Could've warned me," I muttered, leaning my head onto his shoulder and closing my eyes, not really even thinking twice about being carried by him. I had said recently that I didn't really find it too awkward anymore, but now I realized I didn't find it awkward in the least.

"But besides that, you lack complaints, correct?" he replied, glancing down at me as he leapt up into the nearest tree.

"Yeah, yeah."

"Hn." He smirked and looked out across the high school, his eyes lingering there for a moment before shifting sideways and looking down the street. "Well? Where should we go? I'm not feeling particularly creative at the moment."

"Neither am I," I mumbled back faintly, distracted by his eyes. _Damn…freaking awesome-looking eyes…freaking awesome-looking color…_

He seemed to feel me staring and looked down, blinking once. "What?"

"Your eyes," I started to murmur, then caught myself and looked down before he could see me start to blush. _What the hell!_ I thought angrily._ Why am I blushing?_ I honestly couldn't think of an answer. _That wasn't a blush kinda situation._ I considered it again. It really, really wasn't.

"…Are you alright? You're acting odder than usual."

I tried to ignore my cheeks feeling hot, since noticing it generally only made it worse, and I muttered, "'Than usual'? Gee, don't I feel special."

"Hn."

"Well, what about where we normally go to spar? The field near the mountains."

"If you plan on being back to see your human father when he returns tomorrow, that's not a likely plan. And I'd rather not use my jagan on your human mother for a while—her mind can't handle too many more false memories."

I glanced up at him, quirking one of my eyebrows. "And you care why?"

"I don't. But you would, and I'd rather not suffer your (rather pitiful) wrath." The 'rather pitiful' had been muttered softly, but at the same time I knew I had been meant to hear it, and I growled to myself.

"Well," I suggested, "we could try the woods behind the school that we were in last night."

"Too high of a possibility of humans being around."

"…Okay, uhm…Letchworth?"

"It's a park, right? And it's the middle of the day—unlike when we went the first time when it was closed, there will be hundreds of humans there now."

I uttered another low growl, and said, "Well, then you suggest somewhere. Everything I can think of has a fault, and I don't feel like listening to you shoot down the ideas anymore."

He met my eyes again, raising a single black eyebrow. "You act like I'm doing it just to spite you."

I returned the expression, muttering with false seriousness, "You're not?"

"Hn."

"…Well? Where are we goin'?"

He just gave a forced sigh of annoyance and began to run along the trees down Jefferson Road, away from the school, without commenting back, and I trusted he would be able to find somewhere to go and just watched the land fly by sickeningly fast.

To my surprise, it seemed like we were heading toward Kaze's house. Or at least in the same direction, I decided when I figured that he wouldn't _actually_ be going toward her house. Suddenly I was attacked by a fierce desire to see her, and I realized that I missed her, Aria and T'nuviel sorely. "I'm gonna have to call Kaze one of these days," I said, more to myself than for Hiei's benefit.

"Kaze…your brunette friend? The human?"

"Yup." I looked up at him, teasing in a sarcastic voice, "I'm so proud of you—you remembered her."

After a brief glare without turning his head, he growled, "Do you enjoy the ability to breathe?"

"…I guess. Dare I ask why you're wondering?"

"If you intend on keeping that ability, I suggest you stop speaking."

"…M'kay."

Hiei actually went up Kaze's street, using the pine trees to avoid humans seeing him and I, but he didn't stop at her house. Even still, I spotted Kaze in her driveway, by the looks of it about to get into a car alongside one of her friends, Aerie (Or human-dubbed Shannon), whom I had only met once before, and I cried, "Kaze!" with a large grin on my face. She looked backward to where we had been just as Hiei landed in a tree behind her, in her neighbor's yard, but when she saw nothing she just gave a barely-noticeable shake of her head and got in the car.

Hiei sighed heavily, growling, "You really have no common sense, do you?"

"…Automatic response," I muttered. "Sorry."

A second sigh answered me, and as soon as the white station wagon in the driveway pulled out, Hiei ran sideways along the rest of the trees in Kaze's neighbor's yard and headed for the tree line that was parallel to the expanse of farmland lined up next to Kaze's yard.

If one was to stand in said farmland, one would be able to see a long ways far off, and I had always enjoyed the view myself, but I had never really dreamed of or thought of going that way, though I'd always held the desire to. Hiei now went that way, beginning to leap rather than run from tree to tree, as they were spaced farther apart now.

When he landed a short time later in a cultivated field, near another tree-line, I recognized it from a long while back. "Hey, this is where I got stabbed for the first time," I said, my voice rather cheery and out of place for the words.

Hiei shook his head. "You remember places by how you got wounded while standing on them." Sarcastically, he added, "Charming."

I shrugged. "We're sparring here?"

"No, I just enjoy the scenery."

"…Really?"

"…Of course not. Get down."

I obliged, standing on my own when he let go of me, glad that my legs were finally obeying me. "You're going to go easy on me, right?" I asked, lifting my eyes from my feet. "I mean, I'm still inju—" Hiei wasn't in my sight, and after a quick turn of my head, I realized he wasn't anywhere nearby, at least not that I could see. I sighed. "Alright, fine, be that way. But really, at least _try_ to go easy on—"

Suddenly I was knocked backward, and as I was pinned down, a sword a few inches from my neck, Hiei growled through his smirk, "It isn't in my nature to go easy. You know that."

I struggled to keep my hold against his sword strong—any slack and my throat would be slit. "Yeah," I replied, my voice strained, "I do know that." I kneed him in the stomach and yanked up my free fist to hit the side of his face, and rolled away when he was pushed sideways at least a slight bit.

I felt his sword rest casually against my spine, and I stopped as he chided, "You're being careless, Ketsue."

I sighed, standing without trying to counter, turning to him. "Sorry. I'm feelin' kinda…light-headed."

"Well deal with it and focus. Thus far you've usually been able to rest after being injured, but that will not always be the case. You have to get used to fighting wounded."

"I know." I swished my hand backward, my sword lengthening with the motion, and I raised it before me, setting the arm that wasn't holding the sword beneath the other in a block. "Now quit lecturing me and attack."

He was gone before I could even start to blink, and I whipped around to block, my other arm slashing downward to cut off his kick before it could make contact. I dipped the arm holding my sword down to block his other leg as it came at me in another kick, but because of the movement, my sword was moved as well. His blade pressed harder against mine, and both the katanas were shoved nearer to my neck. "You're acting like a shadowcat, throat-obsessor," I accused lightly, ducking beneath both blades and sliding sideways as he was momentarily thrown off balance when I wasn't there to support the weight he had leaned against his sword.

"'Obsessor' isn't a word, you know," Hiei told me as he lashed out backward with his katana.

It grazed my back when I ducked underneath it again, and I watched as a few tips of my hair were sliced through. I gritted my teeth, growling, "Watch the hair."

He smirked at me, our swords clashing together again. "Funny—you care more about your hair than injury."

"Who said that?" I was having trouble holding out against his strength; not to say it was easy normally, but it was much worse now—my muscles felt like they were made of deflated balloons that were about to burst. "I did tell you to be careful before."

Finally getting bored enough with trying to match the strength of someone obviously stronger than me that a small wound seemed like a reasonable price for freeing me from the situation, I twisted around, withdrawing my sword from the position. Hiei's blade swiped across my back, but my own hit his back as well. Surprisingly to me, I felt his wound form on my own back thanks to the ofuda. The ofuda hadn't worked (At least not honestly, to my knowledge.) in a long while. I wasn't complaining—finally, it felt like there was a use to it (even if it did earn me a double wound and make sparring rather difficult.). Also surprisingly to me, Hiei didn't change that fact—he kept fighting as if he didn't even know he had been wounded, and if I didn't know him so well (And also know that he was never—well, rarely—unaware of anything.), I'd think that he honestly hadn't noticed.

I decided to assume that this was another need-to-know sort of thing—fighting with the ofuda still in effect, that is—and I ignored it just as he had. Our swords clashed against each other, and as I tried to keep the power struggle as even as possible, I decided to let myself be over-powered for the shortest time while I summoned my hell-flame sword. Well, I had counted on 'the shortest time', at least. It proved difficult to recover and fit in my own attack when he weaved his sword behind mine and flicked it backward, rendering it useless. Being that it was an energy sword, it dissolved, but when he launched at me with another attack, I found myself too distracted to try and summon another or to focus enough to strengthen the hell-flame sword.

Black and teal flames roared along Hiei's blade, and I realized he was using his attack that was incredibly similar to the Black Dragon Wave (Sword of the Darkness Flame, in anime-terms.), and I noted that it was extremely close in likeness to the hell-flame sword in my hand.

His attacks were honestly so much better than my defenses that I felt like I had on the first day of his training when he mock-attacked me—completely helpless. They were swifter than I'd ever seen then, more exact, and they overwhelmed me so easily that I guess the best way my fighting could be described when compared to his would be 'inferior'.

_This_ was the Hiei I remembered, back when he sparred me before I had known him long without mercy. I found myself grinning, unable to stop myself, and I could barely keep my focus. Why I wanted him to be merciless against me when I had just believed he had attacked me mercilessly with the intent to kill a few weeks ago, I wasn't sure, but whatever the case, I'd never been happier or more willing to fight him.

But as with all of my good moods, it didn't last. The joint pain on my back from both of our injuries felt sharper than I knew it should; I didn't generally tend to be slowed down by that sort of wound in a fight. And I wasn't normally so aware of the pounding of my heart or the rasp of my breath while I ran to dodge an attack. And I certainly wasn't used to the feeling of extreme pressure on my chest, which made my movements slow. The pressure only increased, and I was barely aware that I was stumbling sideways and that my eyes were rolling back before I found myself on the ground and looking up at Hiei. He was crouching beside me and propping me up in a sitting position, regarding me with what was either annoyance, frustration or curiosity. I wasn't sure I even cared to know which it was.

Before he could say anything, I rolled my eyes and sighed. "…God damn it."

"…I'll assume you're alright, then, Ketsue?" he asked flatly.

"Yup…just peachy."

"I'll also assume that the spar is over."

"Brilliant deduction."

As he picked me up, he muttered, "Shut up."

I grinned at his unusual way of quieting me—I hadn't hear him say 'shut up' since he last said it to Yusuke. I debated between saying 'Yes sir!' or 'Aye aye, Captain!', but I figured I was injured enough and didn't need to risk anything further. "So," I said after the silence had lasted long enough to bother me, "any ideas as to why I passed out?"

"You don't know?"

"Nope."

He glanced down at me only briefly, but it lasted long enough that we made eye contact. "And you didn't wonder before now?"

"…Nope."

Hiei shook his head, giving a light sigh, and he growled, "I often wonder what it'd be like to work with someone intelligent. Somehow I find it hard to imagine, but I'd think it would be a nice change."

I snorted. "And what about Kurama?"

"He's been known to do stupid things."

"Meh, don't we all? Anyway, what _did_ happen, all my apparent stupidity aside?"

"It's a lasting effect of your injury. I guess, once again, you aren't as healed as I originally thought."

"'Once again'?" I quoted.

I didn't see him do it, but I assumed he had shrugged when I felt myself lifted the slightest bit higher for a moment. "I've thought you were healed better from different injuries than this before."

"Mm." There was a long pause, and as Hiei leapt from the last tree on Kaze's street onto one alongside the Erie Canal, I spoke up again. "So, how long was I out?"

"Not long. Maybe two minutes."

"…That's not long?"

He gave a flat, "No," in response.

I considered 'not long' the ten seconds or so I had been unconscious when I fainted for the first time earlier that year, when I got food poisoning (Not a fun experience, by the way. I didn't eat beef again until over a year later, which by this point meant I still avoided it.). I considered muttering 'Whatever', but decided it wasn't worth it.

After I arrived home, I bugged Hiei for a few hours, starting and restarting nonsensical conversations that he clearly didn't care about in the least, until he finally told me that if I didn't shut up, he'd leave to go kill Escque or demons.

"Without me?" I guessed.

"It'd defeat the point if I took you along," he growled back. "I don't often get headaches, so the simple fact that you've given me one is an amazing feat. All the same…shut up."

"That's the third time you've said that today," I noted, amused by how easily I could irritate him.

"Another feat. And I'm sure you're enjoying this."

"Immensely."

"Hn."

From the stairs outside my room, I heard my mother shout up, "Dinner's ready! Come on down!"

I blinked, wondering if that meant that my brother and Tena (His girlfriend, if I haven't mentioned her previous.) were home. Again, I felt that incredible, fierce longing, this time to see those two. Mostly Adam, of course, but I had to admit I missed Tena a bit as well.

_I have no desire to stick around and watch you and your family, so I'm going to go investigate that energy I just felt,_ Hiei's voice told me in my mind.

_Energy?_

_Yes. I sensed it a few seconds ago—obviously your own spiritual senses aren't quite recovered yet._

_Sure you want to go alone?_ I asked, even though I knew I more so wanted to go for my own benefit than to help Hiei.

_I'm sure I can handle it. You remember what I said about using my jagan, anyways, don't you?_

I sighed as I opened my door and walked downstairs. _Of course._ As I reached the bottom of the stairs, walking down the hall, I continued directly before I turned into the dining room, _When will you be back?_

_I marvel at the fact you aren't human sometimes,_ was the response I received. I sat down, offering my mother a small smile and confirming that yes, Adam and Tena were here. _You get attached easily, quickly, and then unrelentingly. Seems rather human to me._

_I guess that means you have to get away for a bit?_ I replied, attempting not to sound like it'd hurt my feelings. It hadn't, really, or at least that's what I insisted to myself.

_If you want honesty, yes. I'll be back by tomorrow, most likely later tonight._

_Alright._

The dinner was boring, as usual. My brother and his girlfriend provided most of the noise and conversation, as usual. And also as usual, I was silent through the entire thing unless I was directly spoken to or felt the need to crack a sarcastic comment, and even when I did either of those things, my words were mumbled and often needed to be repeated. Though I was pretty cocky in my demon form and even in my human form if I wasn't around humans, I was quiet and could often be considered shy around humans and sometimes my family. It annoyed me to no end, because it felt like it had no remedy.

After the table was cleared, I went into the study, feeling odd sitting in my computer chair and being…normal. My e-mail was stacked with junk e-mail, chain letters from a few human friends and a few _really_ old e-mails from Kaze, Ri-Chan (Aria.) and T'nuviel; any recent ones, I knew, wouldn't have made sense—my friends forgot about me when I was gone as well. Bored quickly, I closed all of the windows open on the screen and sat back in the chair with my eyes closed.

Faintly from the kitchen I heard Adam say, "We should go out for ice cream."

"It's _raining,_" my mom protested flatly, a clear 'no'.

"No, it _was_ raining," Tena put in. "It's not anymore."

"It's also getting dark out," Mother continued. Still a no.

"I'll pay," my brother offered.

The feud lasted long enough that I knew either my mom would crack or she'd become so frustrated with the conversation that no matter _what_ they said, she'd say no. Finally, she did crack, and told Adam to go ask if I wanted to go.

Before he could open his mouth to speak, I grumbled, "No," when he walked into the doorway.

"She says no!" Adam shouted down the hall, much too loudly. I gave a small growl.

"See you when we get back, then," he told me, and trotted back down to the kitchen.

For a moment I thought the humans had already left, but then I heard my mother come down the hall again to grab her shoes. As she was putting them on, she asked, "Did you hear about the pothole on Jefferson?"

I lived on a street off of a road called Jefferson; fleetingly in my mind, the image of my fist causing a crater in the pavement of the road when I had attempted to fight Kuwabara played across my mind. "No, no I didn't hear about that," I replied innocently.

"Oh, really? It's huge. There are cones around it it's so bad."

I lazily feigned interest. "I see. Wow."

"Well, we'll be back in an hour or so. Do you want anything?"

Any other time, I would have jumped at the chance to have ice cream, but I felt sick at the thought of any more food after the dinner, even if I hadn't eaten too much, and I shook my head.

"Are you sure?"

"Positive." Attempting to sound like the moody human teenager I figured I should be, I muttered, "_Bye_, Mom," in a clear way of telling her to 'leave, already!'

"Alright, alright. Bye, sweetie. Love you!"

"Yeah, me, too." If it had been anyone other than her, I probably would have gotten the annoying quip of, 'You love you, too?' but she just walked toward the garage door and shouted something incoherent at the other two teenagers outside.

Sighing heavily, I stood up and walked toward the living room, flopping down on the couch and looking out the window as it got darker. _I…Am so bored._ Bored enough to fall asleep, I soon realized, as I felt myself drifting off. Not honestly in the mood to fight it, I allowed myself to sleep.

"Oh, sure, I'll go get her."

I recognized my mother's voice coming up from the vents in the wall that connected to the downstairs, and I rolled over, giving a muffled groan.

"Rache?"

I didn't even look up as my human mother called up the stairs, not even registering that she meant me. I hadn't heard the name in so long I was able to ignore it without second thought.

"Rachel!"

At the second shout, I glared at the door, but I still didn't think anything of it.

From outside my window, Hiei's snide comment of, "That's you, you know," snapped me out of it.

"Oh…right." I grinned sheepishly at him, then called down sweetly, "Yes, mom?"

"Phone!"

Despite her lack of description, I knew she meant that the phone was for me. I called, "Who is it?"

"Joanna."

Though Kaze rarely knew anything…practical, I suppose is the word, she was able to sense some things even if she wasn't aware of doing it. For example, she was calling me now, only a few days after I arrived home. It may have not been the only time she called me—she could have done so when I was gone—but still, she unconsciously knew I was home. I reached over and picked up the receiver of my phone, mumbling a groggy, "Hello?"

"Hi-Chan, did you just wake up?"

"Uh huh."

"Do you know what time it is?"

"Uh uh." I paused for a moment, then asked, "Should I care or something?"

I heard Kaze sigh on the other line, and she muttered, "Never mind."

"What'd you call for?"

"My parents are insisting that I get together with people, and since I haven't seen you in a while, I called you first."

"Oh, goody," I growled. "A routine visit probed by the parents. I feel _so_ loved."

"Come on, Hi-Chan, you know I love you. So can you come over?"

I rolled over again, facing the door this time, and gave a long stretch, making a small squeaking noise as I finished. I ignored Kaze's amused query of, "What was _that_?" and got out of the bed, aware that I was still in my clothes. I guess it hadn't registered yet that I had fallen asleep on the couch and that I was in my room.

"Mom!" I shouted down the stairs. No response. "_Mom_!" Again, no response. "_Mo-om—_"

"She's in the basement," Adam called up, sounding annoyed with my shouting, and I growled to myself.

"Hold on, Kaze, she's not upstairs right now." I flopped back down onto my mattress. "So, what's up?"

"Not too much…I talked to T'nuviel yesterday."

"Yeah? Cool. How is she?"

"She's good. She wanted to know how you'd been, but I couldn't really tell her. How long has it been since we got together?"

"I dunno." _A month or two._ "A while, I guess."

"Yeah." There was silence on the other end, and then she asked, "So, how's Hiei?"

I almost fell off the bed from surprise before I remembered that she had been there the night he first came—or at least showed himself. "Uh…he's good. Kind of annoyed with me."

I heard Kaze snicker. "Not surprising."

I sighed. "Again, I feel _so_ loved."

"Mmhmm."

"…Are you reading?" Since I doubt anyone who is also reading (this, of course) knows Kaze personally, she's a bookworm. And a fanfiction-worm. It's hard to catch her on the phone when she _isn't_ reading, and if you have a book with you, beware—she _will_ steal it. Of course she'll say she only wants to read the back, but then she'll open it and start reading it anyway…You get the idea. Her bland 'mmhmm's often signaled that she wasn't really paying attention and that she was in reading-mode.

"Yup."

"Gee, I _couldn't_ tell."

"Shut up."

I gave a fake, exasperated sigh. "Why does _everyone_ keep saying that?" After no response from Kaze, I said, "Are you listening?"

"Hmm? Not really. I'm reading."

"…I know. I _just_ asked you about that."

"Oh, right."

A long silence passed.

"…Kaze?"

"Hmm?"

"Stop reading."

"Sorry!"

My human mother finally came up from the basement, as I could hear her talking to my brother, and I said, "Alright, my mom's upstairs again, so I'll go ask her. When do you want to get together?"

"I don't know," she told me, and I could almost hear her shrugging.

"Do you ever?" I mumbled with the mouth piece away from my face, and I called down, "Mom! Can I get together with Kaze?"

"Who?"

"Joanna."

"When?"

"I don't know yet."

"Where?"

"What do you mean, _where_? Our house!"

"Alright, alright!" she called up, coming into view. "I wasn't sure if you wanted to go to her house or not."

"I'd like to," I responded, "but Kaze kind of, you know, _hates_ her house."

"Well, no," Kaze interrupted, and I lowered the phone so that the mouth piece was beside my lips again. "My mom wants to see you, since she hasn't for a while, so she wants you to come over here."

"…Okay." I looked to my mother again. "Scratch that, I'm going to her house."

As if an unconscious form of saying she had missed me even if she didn't really _remember_ me being gone, the look on her face said she didn't support the idea.

"I need to get out of the house, Mom," I protested before she could say no.

She made a crude gesture to the phone, and she said, "Why don't you tell Joanna that you'll call her back?"

_Crap. I hate discussing stuff with parents…_ "Hey, Kaze?" I said into the phone. "I'm going to have to call you back."

"Okay. Bye."

"Bye." I hung up, looking to my mother. "Alright, what?"

"Why do you want to get out of the house so bad?" she asked, motioning for me to come downstairs.

I followed, muttering, "Well…I haven't been out much." She gave me a queer look, and I continued, "Well, you know, since I've been sick lately."

"You've been sick?" She glanced over at me, worried.

"Uhm…that's why I've been sleeping so much," I replied, frustrated when I realized I didn't know exactly what Hiei's implanted mind-excuse had been this time around.

"What do you mean? You've been going over to friends' houses almost non-stop."

"I…ha--? Uh, yeah. I know. Uhm…Kaze's wearing me out."

"Kaze?"

"Joanna."

"You haven't been to Joanna's house lately."

I found myself quickly becoming flustered. If I didn't get the story right soon, she'd get even more suspicious that she probably already was, and she'd know I was lying, and then she'd think I was going off and doing something I wasn't supposed to. Which, I suppose, was true. "…I mean, she's been annoying me online. And I…get tired when I get annoyed?" I hadn't meant to finish the last part as a question, but I couldn't help it.

"Are you alright?" She looked at me closely.

"I'm fine!" I held up my hands and waved them around exaggeratedly. "I'm just…er…I had a fight with Ashleigh." I knew not to say T'nuviel, since she hadn't recognized Kaze's even more common non-human name.

"When did you talk to Ashleigh?"

"Ashleigh?" I said, laughing uncomfortably. "I meant Ri-Chan. Er, Leah."

"Oh, I see." So I finally got the story right. "Why, what happened?"

"I…We fought about…That is…" I could just imagine Hiei laughing to himself at my stuttering, and I just stopped mid-sentence. "Hiei—" I started, about to tell him to distract her mind, but I realized—whoops, obviously I was still talking to her. I wasn't sure where my head was at.

"Hiei?" she quoted, pronouncing his name incorrectly as hee-I. "That anime person?"

"…Yeah. The short, jerk-ass one," I said with mild vehemence, hoping he heard it.

"Rachel!"

_Crap. I'm not allowed to swear here, am I?_ "Sorry, I slipped," I mumbled lamely.

"You've been fighting over an anime character?"

"…Uhm…yes." I grinned. "Well, I'm kind of bored, so I'm gonna go…sit outside." I gave a queer laugh and walked toward the back door, heaving a large sigh once I was in the backyard. "You better make her forget that," I hissed softly, softly enough that even if Mom had been listening through the door because of my oddities, she wouldn't have heard me.

"Why?" Hiei dropped down beside me, which I knew meant she wasn't watching—the glass of the back door was clear, so he would have been able to see her, as well as sense her even if it hadn't been clear. He sounded amused. "I was having fun watching you stutter over your story."

"Yeah, because you hadn't told me what I was supposed to pretend I had been doing," I grumbled back accusingly. "And I couldn't have asked you telepathically," I added, knowing he'd probably suggest it, "because it would have distracted me from speaking out loud. I can't concentrate on talking if I'm asking you something through mind-speech."

"So instead, you just started to say it out loud, in front of your human mother."

"Yes." I thought about it for a moment and frowned. "…No. …Damn it!" I sighed, clenching my fists and trying my best to ignore his amused smirk. He was clearly enjoying himself, still. "You could have made her forget anyway! Which brings me back to the _actual_ subject."

"There was an actual subject?" he asked innocently.

I stared at him flatly. "Yes. Contrary to apparently popular belief, there _is_ a point to this conversation. I want you to—"

But he flickered from my sight before I could finish what I was saying, and I swore, slouching against the door which, no surprise to me, was knocked on seconds after. I looked over my shoulder to see my mother, and I groaned under my breath and stood, walking inside. She led me to the kitchen after the much-hated "Me and Daddy want to talk to you for a minute", and again, it was no surprise to me that I had to sit through a fifteen-minute speech about how strangely I was acting, how they thought I was depressed, them questioning exactly why I had the various cuts on my arm and barely trying to cover up their assumptions that I was inflicting them on myself, and then my dad raising his voice when I responded with annoyed rebuttals against their accusations. It ended with me just walking away, Dad shouting for me to come back, and me just leaving out the front door.

_Now that,_ came Hiei's voice, _I can afford to make them forget._

_Which only means I'll have to listen to it again_, I responded telepathically, my mind-voice a mutter.

_Then I'll make them forget the cause for it as well._

_About time._ _That was your fault, you know._

There was no comment back from him for a while, and I made it to the end of the street, wondering if he actually felt guilt for it, when suddenly I was pulled off my feet. I glared up at him as he sprang up and into the trees, me in his arms in the normal position when he carried me, and he said, "I still enjoyed it, though."

"…Jerk."

"Wench."

I sighed. "I'm not in the mood."

"Seconded."

"Since when are you so agreeable?"

"I'm not. I just hate listening to you complain."

"…Ass."

"I thought you said you weren't in the mood for this?"

I growled under my breath and looked at the ground, which was moving past fast enough to make me sick, and I settled on looking at my knees, not responding. Finally, I grumbled, "Well, where are you taking me, anyway?"

"To your friend's house."

"Uhm, why?"

He smirked. "I need to dump you somewhere for a while, and your house isn't suitable." I glared at him, which seemed to spark an actual answer. "You've wanted to see your friend, and I'm not sure when the next long…'trip' will be, so you might as well do it now." He shrugged. "Besides, I wasn't joking—I have to speak with Kurama about what to do about Nirvana, and just in case there's any trouble in Makai, I want you to stay in the human world. As you displayed yesterday, you can still fight wounded, but not for long."

He had left me no time to protest about being left behind even when it involved Nirvana before he had made a good point, and I decided against mentioning how odd it was that Hiei was acting again like he actually cared about my welfare; I figured it was to be considered a luxury, coming from him. "…You know, I still haven't gotten Mom's permission to go to Kaze's house."

All I received in response was a smirk and a small snicker from Hiei. "Do you really think you _need_ her permission?"

"But her parent's might—"

"Forget all about it," he interrupted. "And that would be a shame," he continued sarcastically, but the second half sounded honest enough, "but it would buy you time with your friend."

"…Ah. Right. Well, then, be my guest to take me." He didn't seem to care to respond, but I spoke again anyway. "Thanks."

"Hn. You never thank me for anything—don't start now for something this small."

I grinned. "Aww, you get flustered over thanks?" I asked in a falsely sweet tone. "How cute."

"I _will_ kill you," he growled, irritated.

"Mm, and the last time you tried you failed," I murmured back in a reminding tone. "I have no worries." He gave me a dangerous look, and I grinned sweetly at him, and for once the smile lacked sarcasm. "Would you calm down? I wasn't serious."

"…Hn."

"…So, uhm, what was the energy you sensed yesterday?" I hadn't thought about it before, but I had a hunch now that he mentioned meeting fox-boy in Makai.

"It was Kurama, as I'm sure you've guessed."

"Yyyup. Just wanted to tell you where to go or somethin'?"

"Yes." His response had been delayed, which I took as suspicious, but we stopped suddenly. I realized we were in a tree outside Kaze's house—the one with two swings on it. Speaking of the swings, Kaze was sitting in one, looking spacey as usual.

This time around, I resisted saying her name, and said to Hiei telepathically, _Can you drop me off…uhm…I don't know, down the street?_

_Sure. But you could just go to the field over there and wait until she gets bored enough to head there._

_Jeez, you make it sound like I'm going to ambush her._

_You're not?_

I had to resist a snicker, and Hiei leapt over to the next tree nearby in the neighbor's yard just as Kaze looked up above her to the branch we had just been on. She made a small "Hmm" noise, shrugging, and moved her swing back the slightest bit.

Suddenly I felt myself dropping, and I flipped over midair and caught myself on my hands and legs like a cat, biting back a profanity. _THE HELL WAS THAT!_ I shouted through mind-speech.

_Would you calm down? Shouting telepathically hurts someone's mind much more than shouting out loud does someone's ears. This way you don't have to walk up the road. Hn. Besides, I knew you could catch yourself._

_...You fucking jack—_

"Hi-Chan?"

I shot up, giving a queer laugh and smiling lopsidedly at Kaze. "Uh…hey! Uhm…uhm… So…Momdidn'treallywantmetocomesoIdecidedto'takeawalk'andthencomehereanyway." I nodded once, then walked over to the swing.

"…Huh?"

"…Never mind."

"'Kay."

Kaze was _way_ too quick to accept that nothing was out of the ordinary. I think I could have dropped off the roof and she wouldn't have wondered why.

We eased into a casual conversation, and walked on the farmland behind the tree with the swings, and I found myself feeling incredibly comfortable spending a single day acting like a human. I told Kaze nothing of what I had done the past few weeks, didn't mention her false memories, and I left out the Dark Tournament in the conversation, though what I could only assume would be called my ego badly wanted me to brag about winning it. And being there in general…that had been pretty awesome as well.

I had sensed Hiei leave delayed from when he had, ehem, _dropped_ me, and I knew he had watched us for at least five minutes before leaving. Some time after, I felt the faint sensation of a rift-tear open somewhere (Though I assured Kaze that my momentary distraction had just been me zoning off.). I spent a good two hours there, before I knew I should probably get back to my parents before they freaked. Hiei obviously wasn't there to distract their minds.

Spending even that short of a time with Kaze would prove to seem like an extreme luxury. I didn't see her for a few weeks after that, nor did I see any of my human-world friends. Or any familiar part of human world in general, for what Hiei and Kurama were discussing was a much broader subject than Nirvana alone. They also spoke about the only person Nirvana answered to—Atenre—and the massive amounts of rifts that would begin to appear in the coming weeks. As well, the next few weeks would hold many of the visions I had had thus far and nearly forgotten, as well as those I had yet to see. Of course, Hiei and Kurama hadn't known that, and nor did I. I only wish I had.

* * *

**Authoress's Note:** Meh…rather nonsensical, fairly unimportant chapter. Things will begin getting interesting again soon, as I'm sure you picked up from the 'subtle' /sarcasm foreshadowing/hinting in the last paragraph. Woot. Anyway, the 'You killed Rex' dude, as apparently is the name of the guy from the vision (XD), thing will happen soon. In the next chapter or so, maybe a few chapters away. Not quite sure yet, as something else besides the vision that's major happens at the same time and I'm not sure when I want it to happen. 


	30. Ice and Spike

**Disclaimer:** Neither Hiei, nor Yu-Yu-Hakusho is mine.

**Claimer:** Chichiro and Ketsue are mine, Kaze is BritKit, Aria is FoxWitch. While not all the characters are mine, all writing, storylines and concepts in this fanfiction (Save any YYH references) are (This includes Nirvana, Spike, all shadowcats, the shadowcat species, Escque, Mahdaegrahs/entities, etcetera.).

* * *

"_Catch me as I fall_

_Say you're here and it's all over now_

_Speaking to the atmosphere_

_No one's here and I fall into myself._" I paused for a moment, thumbing over the lyrics in my mind and began to sing again when I remembered them—I hadn't heard 'Whisper' in a long while. "_This truth drives me into madness_

_I know I can stop the pain if I will it all away_

_If I will it away_…"

"I haven't heard you sing that in a while."

As Hiei's voice broke my calm, I snapped out of it and cut off just before I started the chorus. I looked up from the window sill and met his eyes through the screen; he was lying back against the tree trunk casually on his usual branch.

"Actually, I haven't heard you sing in a while."

"Uh, yeah," I mumbled back finally, "I guess not." Lifting my hand and tucking a strand of hair behind my ear before I could stop, I found myself annoyed with the nervous habit. I immediately threaded my finger beneath the hair and flipped it back out from behind my ear to fall beside my face again. "When did you get back?"

"Not too long ago," he responded lightly, setting his arms behind his head and closing his eyes. "Just before you started that song, actually."

"Ah." There was silence for a moment; I was still trying to stop myself from being uncomfortable about him hearing me sing. I didn't used to be that way… "So, uhm, how did talking to Kurama go?"

"Fine," he said back as if I had actually meant the question exactly as I'd worded it.

"…I mean, what did you talk about? Find out or decide, that is."

"For now there isn't much we can do about Nirvana. She has most likely received word by now that you survived, so she probably won't show herself for a while."

"…So then why did you and Kurama talk about it?"

"Because we had more to discuss than Nirvana," he muttered in return, sounding as though it had been obvious. I guess it _had_ been predictable.

"Such as?" I asked flatly, leaning onto the windowsill with my arms crossed and my chin resting on them.

"Nothing that will be important in the immediate future."

I thought about it for a short moment, then queried, "That depends on what your definition of 'immediate' future is—so what is it?"

"A few days. A week or two."

"Hmmph. So, you're going to wait until the 'near future' to tell me anything useful rather than the 'immediate future'?"

As I lifted my eyes to him, he nodded. "Exactly."

I just sighed.

It was sunrise, or nearly so; the sky was becoming reddish, but the moon was still visible (Though that didn't always mean much time-wise. It could be visible in the afternoon sometimes.) and it was still relatively dark out. It was probably around six in the morning, and when I looked to the clock I found that it was 5:34. With another sigh, I let my head flop back down onto my arms.

"You should sleep. You seem weary."

I cracked open one eye to regard Hiei with a strange look. "That's odd, coming from you. But you're right, I am kind of tired…I guess I'm not used to being conscious without you around."

He gave a small, indifferent shrug, but something had flickered within his eyes when I said it; I wasn't able to focus in on the expression, as he looked away and across the backyard as if he'd seen something.

That look…Had he missed me? I found the thought welcoming, but not entirely believable, and I decided against actually thinking that, cutting the small smile on my face short. I sat up and slid from the trunk I had been sitting on, walking onto my bed (Again, it was only a singular mattress without a frame, about foot or so off the floor. Incredibly short.), sitting down and laying back clumsily onto my pillows. My dog gave a low growl as I laid down, though it wasn't toward me—it was out the window at Hiei. I snickered softly, then closed my eyes and drifted off just as I was able to smell rain as it began to fall outside.

* * *

"—so I have to get you on a better schedule."

The last few words of my mother's apparently long speech drifted into my ears, and I gave a muffled groan and rolled over, making it clear I intended to ignore her, whatever she had to say.

"Rachel! What happened to your ba—"

Before she could even finish which body part she was asking about an injury on, I muttered, "Rat scratch."

"But it's so—"

"_Rat_ scratch," I repeated flatly, in that dangerous I'm-serious tone that always worked on her even if she did think that I was younger than her.

When I rolled over, I concentrated on my back and felt a minor pain and guessed that it was where 'Hiei's' sword had stabbed through my back when Nirvana had tried to kill me. I was wearing a camisole, after all, so Mother would have been able to see the still-healing scar.

"Are you sure that—?"

"I'm going to get dressed, now," I interrupted, not too kindly. "Would you mind leaving?"

She mumbled something I didn't care to pay attention to and left the room. I stood up and walked to my dresser, picking out a shirt and then going to my closet to grab my usual jeans. I noticed that I was running out of jeans—most of them had been damaged in my fighting. "I need to go shopping," I muttered, more to myself than anything, and then headed downstairs to take a shower.

After not having access to one (Even if Yusuke had said that demons apparently didn't really need to take one as often as humans, whatever that meant. It was true that I hadn't felt dirty or anything unless I had blood on me, but still…It was just an automatic thing to want to take a shower.) for a while, a shower felt incredibly good even if it did sting my scratches and injuries. Immediately after I'd gotten out, gotten dressed and went through my general routine of getting ready, I headed out into the back yard.

_So,_ I asked through telepathy, _what are we going to do today?_

Hiei's reply was delayed, and I figured he had thought about it for a moment. _We could make the attempt at sparring again, or—_

_No, not today. I've had enough sparring for now._

As if I'd said nothing, he continued his 'or'. _–we could find the nearest rift and battle the Escque and demons._

_There's a rift around?_

_There have been several rifts today. I've been fighting all morning, but I'd be willing to go again if you'd like._

_Uh...sure._ I considered for a short few seconds, then continued, _Who is making the rifts?_

_Most are opening on their own, and some are being created by bored or ambitious demons._

_Not Nirvana?_

_I'd say she'd fit into the 'ambitious demon' category._

_Ah. Right._ I looked around, my eyes finding Hiei in one of the three trees along the back fence; he was leaning against the trunk, looking casual as ever with his hands in his pockets and looking sideways off in the direction of the school. Again I found myself unable to think of anything other than how hot he was for a few seconds, before I forced myself to think straight and about important things, like the rift, not about how incredibly gorgeous he was. Mentally smacking myself, I looked off in the same direction. I thought that I could faintly see what looked like a rift far, far off in the distance. _Do we go that way, then?_

_It's probably the closest rift. I'd say yes._

_Well, let's get going, then._

I insisted on running there by myself, feeling as though I'd been carried for far too long. I had to stretch my legs again, even if it did mean we got there later than we would have had Hiei carried me there. The run felt great, and I was calm and ready to fight when we arrived within a mile of the rift. I could sense a few Escque here and there, scattered amongst shrubs and trees, but I could see none. We had slowed to a walk near where I began to sense them, and I figured it was to pick off the stragglers who were spreading out. I realized that we were near a road, and beyond the road was a warehouse; the side of the road we were on had fairly deep woods, and I decided that this warehouse (Why did Escque seem to like warehouses so much?) was probably the only point of civilization for a few miles. Good news for us—there would be less humans around to be hurt or killed by Escque, and it'd be easier for me and Hiei to use energy attacks (And swords, really. I guess katanas aren't too common for humans to see, right?) against the Escque.

I summoned an energy sword and hell-flame sword, wielding the two as though they were normal steel swords, and I headed toward the nearest Escque energy signal. As soon as I stabbed through it, even before it had turned to me, I sensed the rest stop moving. For an instant, I thought they were just remaining still to keep from being found, like an animal being hunted, but then their signals began coming toward me blindingly fast.

I could feel that I was surrounded before I saw the first in front of me, and I was forced to ignore those behind me to fight those before me—they were the breed that actually had a structured way of fighting and carried weapons, whereas the ones behind me were the kind I had fought back in the earlier warehouse battle, that just fought with their bodies and without any true fighting style. As I slashed through the first three as they charged forward, I called to Hiei, "These are just Escque—no need to worry. You go on ahead, make sure there aren't any high-level demons or entities coming through the rift."

Hiei nodded and flittered from my sight, and I stabbed backward as I felt one bite my arm.

Seemingly as soon as he disappeared, I sensed a great energy directly behind me—another rift. It was small, I knew, but it was so close to the ground that I was still too stunned to really react. Turning, I barely registered how odd it was that the Escque before me was even _able_ to smirk as it did before I felt myself being shoved backward.

My reflexes were slow, true, but I'm not sure if even at my normal speed I would have given myself a better landing. I hit the ground roughly on my left side; the wind was knocked out of my momentarily, and I wheezed on the ground for a moment before I was able to sit up. I yelped as soon as I moved to, my right hand shooting over to hold my left arm; it hurt like a _bitch_. So did my left leg, but that was more tolerable. Flinching, I opened my palm and looked at my right hand—it was stained with blood. _Great. How far did I fall from?_ Looking up, I saw the rift closing behind me about fifty feet up. Returning my hand to holding my arm, I closed my eyes and let a small hiss spill from my lips as I tried not to make any further verbal protest.

When I finally opened my eyes again to look around, I found that I was somewhere cold; the ground around me was snowy, and the white fluff beneath me was already stark red and seemed out of place. I wasn't really too cold, however, odd as it seemed to me. I figured that it was, as I had figured back at Kurama's house, also a demon thing. I had told Yusuke, after all, that demons didn't get cold very easily.

The trees around me were completely white and looked like some sort of pine; they weren't white from snow, however—their actual trunks, branches and needles were white. As I lifted my eyes to the sky, I could see several black tears that seemed as out of place as I was in the pure whiteness of the landscape. Nothing was coming from these rifts, however, and I wondered if this was a part of demon world. It seemed oddly pretty to be somewhere in Makai, though.

I froze when I scented shadowcat. Perhaps this was Z'chor, then…? Or the world the shadowcats had taken me to when they had 'kidnapped' me before the Tournament. By the smell of these shadowcats, they were fairly close, and I knew that the scent of my blood would be hard to cover up and that they were most likely already headed this way. I couldn't tell how many there were by the smell, but I did know that Spike was among them if there was more than one.

Suddenly Hiei dropped from one of the rifts and landed beside me. I looked over at him, sighing with relief, and then tried to stand. I immediately became frustrated when the simple effort of trying to stand made me cry out. "_Damn! IT!_" I shouted, well aware that I probably sounded rather feral as I was doing so. Obviously, I'd emphasized the words drawn out and loudly by themselves, and I earned an odd look from Hiei for it. "I. Am so. Fucking. _Sick_. Of being injured." I stubbornly swatted away his arm, which he'd offered to help me stand most likely so that he could pick me up and carry me, and I stood on one leg, cradling my left arm against my side, as straight as possible.

"Is it broken?" he asked, ignoring the coldness with which I had addressed his aid.

"Probably." A sharp pain shot up my arm, and I knew I had flinched simply by the expression on his face.

"You don't wince often from injuries like that, at least not so noticeably. I'd say it's broken."

"I already said 'probably'," I retorted hotly, glaring at my arm as though it was its own fault that it was broken. I could see blood through my fingertips, running down the back of my hand, and I guessed it was coming from my elbow or shoulder, though I couldn't see which since I didn't care to try and move it to find out. Turning so that my left side faced him, I said, "So? How does it look?"

"Broken," he repeated flatly. "In fact, I think I can see a bone sticking out of your elbow."

I wasn't sure if he was being sarcastic or not, and I decided against asking. However, I had no time to consider as Spike appeared from behind the trees.

Just as he did, I was distracted by the faint sensation of pain in my chest—not from my wound, though, but that annoying sort of non-physical pain I felt when a large rift was opening. This rift wasn't in this world, I didn't think, which was why the pain was so dull. Most of the time when I had pain like that from rifts, it meant that there were either A-class demons, entities or mahdaegrahs that were escaping into the human world. I glared at my arm again, ignoring Spike for the time being as I thought out what would be the best way to go about this problem. I doubted I'd be of much use unless we could find Kurama quickly to heal my broken bone (That seemed to be his specialty, or something—healing bones, I mean.), but I also doubted that Hiei would like the idea of leaving me here in shadowcat territory alone with said broken bone. Making up my mind that I would have to try to persuade him nonetheless, I said, "Hiei, there's another rift opening in Ningenkai." I was surprised at how smoothly I used the term—I didn't normally say Ningenkai; I actually couldn't remember the last time I'd used it, if I ever had. "There's some sort of strong creature from demon world coming through it now—A-class or something, maybe a mah…eh, entity. You have to go stop it."

He narrowed his eyes at me in a way that said he thought I was being incompetent again. "I'm not leaving you here, if that's what you're asking."

"I wouldn't hurt her, if that's what you're inferring," Spike put in finally, imitating Hiei's tone as he spoke.

"Like I'd trust _you_," Hiei spat at the shadowcat with vehemence I hadn't heard him use…well, ever.

"Well you can trust _me_," I reminded him, waiting until he tore his eyes from Spike to speak again. "I'm not a child that needs to be looked after—I've been injured before, I know how to protect myself. We don't have time to argue—you're going. Now."

He raised his eyebrows at me, looking stunned at the command in my voice. I thought he'd retort and ask if I was honestly commanding _him_, but instead, he looked to Spike. "If there is a _single_ scratch on her when I return," he snarled dangerously, his eyes glinting with warning, "I will hold you accountable for it, whether you put it there yourself or failed to prevent it from being put there."

"You have nothing to worry about." Even through the shadowcat's reassuring smile and calm, welcoming voice, there was a barely-noticeable stiffness to his tone that made me wary.

Hiei flashed me a single last glance, one that said '_Be careful_', and then he leapt upward and back through the rift he'd come through.

I lowered my eyes from watching him go to look at Spike. We stared at each other unblinking for a long while, before I awkwardly mumbled, "Hi."

He blinked once. "Hello."

He walked toward me, and I considered getting into a defensive stance, but with my arm useless movement-wise and my leg rather immobile as well, I wasn't sure if I even could. So, not entirely by choice, I decided to trust him not to attack.

Stopping a few feet in front of me, Spike said, "I can lead you to a rift-tear that opened not too long ago on this plane. It will take you back to the human world, in the same location you were before, and you can meet Hiei back there. Perhaps that would prove my trustworthiness—I am not the one who killed _your_ comrade, but it seems that I am the one who is being watched with wary eyes, so I figure it wouldn't hurt to try and remind you both that I am not your enemy."

I felt guilty for ever doubting him when he said that, and I nodded. I wanted to say 'I know you're not', but I found that I still couldn't fully believe that, and I knew that even if I did say it, he wouldn't believe it either. "Alright. Lead the way."

I saw his eyes flash to my leg and then my arm before his gaze returned to my face. "Are you sure you can walk?"

"I can stand fine. I'm sure I'll manage."

He shrugged and turned, walking away without further comment.

As we walked—or in my case limped—I realized that I couldn't smell any other shadowcats, and all scents of Spike were fresh and didn't seem to've been there long. He obviously didn't come here often. As we entered the woods, which was made fully of the pine-like white trees, I began to see that it all looked the same. I could only hope that Spike knew his way around as well as he seemed to think he did, and that if I for some reason needed to go back that the blood from my arm and our footsteps would be able to lead me back.

Though Spike continued on without second thought, when I felt ice beneath my feet, I slowed and stepped back off the ice. He sensed me stop, or maybe heard me footsteps go silent, and looked back at me. "Are you afraid of ice?" he asked, sounding surprised.

I wasn't sure if 'afraid' was the right word, but I was wary of it, especially if I couldn't see it beneath the snow and couldn't tell how thick it was. "Are you sure it's stable?"

"I'm walking on it, aren't I?"

I glanced down again, then sighed under my breath and stepped forward again, heading toward Spike. After walking across it about twenty feet, I called to the shadowcat in front of me, "How far across is this?"

"Farther than you'd prefer, I'm sure."

"Comforting," I muttered softly. Then, as if to agree with my sarcasm, I felt the ice cracking, and there was a hiss as several small fissures broke through and began leaking water. I resisted a curse—there was no turning back, now. The only way was forward—I didn't have a choice any longer. _Damn, I hate ice,_ I thought, admitting to myself that yes, I did sort of fear ice. Aria had once said that she, too, sometimes feared ice and thought that it just came automatically with being a fire element. I was a death element, as well, though, and I couldn't really tell if ice was a good or bad thing to a death element. Simply because I was rarely lucky, I doubted it was a good thing for a death element. I could say that ice could bring death and thus could be considered a good thing in a grim way, but then nearly everything—if not everything—could bring death if one wasn't careful.

Spike suddenly stopped in front of me, and I looked up from my feet and narrowed my eyes at him. "What is it?" I asked, trying to keep my suspicion from my voice.

From his countenance, I hadn't done a very good job. His words supported the idea. "Do you trust me?"

I fought with myself when I answered, and I forced the word, "Yes," through my lips.

"I wish you wouldn't." His eyes were harder than the ice beneath us, though as it continued to crack I hoped that it was harder than I gave it credit for. I also hoped that Spike planned on moving, soon, so that I could get across—so that _we_ could get across. Contradicting himself, he continued, "But you should." Pausing, his eyes slid along with a crack that began heading toward him; the longer it formed, the more of a chance it had to cut my way off. I noted with mild dread that Spike seemed to know that fact, and yet did nothing about it. "A half-human like you has much to fear from me," he went on, again twisting his words around. "Years ago, I could have had one of your kind trembling in their boots simply by having them stand here." Finally, he lifted his cold, gray-blue orbs to meet mine. "For years ago, it was well known that there was little colder than the revenge of a shadowcat."

Again having to force myself, I remained calm. "Excuse me?" I retorted, emphasizing the false belligerence in my voice. "I'm not a half-human. I'm a full-blooded demon, and you'd do well to remember that."

"Threatening me?" he asked, cocking his head to the side with blatantly feigned curiosity. His unblinking gaze seemed to grow in threat with each passing minute, and it did nothing to calm my fears of the ice continuing to crack.

"I'm not threatening you." I looked down, making my distress clear to him; I had not intended on making it obvious, as I thought that it'd be best to at least _seem_ confident, but Spike could probably read into me well enough anyway. Besides, I had to check my footing—false stepping would become more and more hazardous as time passed, even if I was standing still.

"Anyone in Makai and Z'chor knows well that wariness would be your greatest asset while facing my breed. We are supposed to be cold, calculating and unforgiving; relentless until vengeance has been quenched."

I had seen this going downhill fast, but I hadn't expected it to be _this_ fast—the ice beneath me finally gave, and I felt the sickening drop as I began to fall.

But I didn't fall long; a hand clasped my wrist, and my legs dangled above the water, and my toes would have touched if I hadn't kept my feet stiff and horizontal. "I guess that's why I'll never be the same sort of leader that my father was—I'm not true enough to the shadowcat reputation." Spike pulled me up farther, then draped me over his shoulder like I was a towel. I growled indignantly, but he didn't seem to notice and began walking across the ice as if he hadn't a care in the world. I could hear the ice continuing to give behind us, and I could actually _see_ several cracks heading toward Spike's feet, but he was unconcerned by it. "I'm just not a cold person. Least not when it comes to you." He sighed forlornly, and there was the humor that I had sorely missed in his voice when he spoke next. "It's so frustrating to me that you're spoken for. Sure, you don't have your mark yet, but you will in due time—for now you wear an invisible mark of your claim."

I felt my eye twitch. Spike was acting…normal, at least for him, again, but he was being—what was the word?—couple-shipping. Like how Yusuke and Kuwabara often were. "Invisible mark?" I quoted. "Claim? Spoken for?" At the third quote, I realized that if I had continued, I probably would have repeated the entirety of what he'd said and looked rather stupid, so I stopped myself. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Well, the fire demon obviously has eyes for you, and you refuse to turn your own away from him no matter _what_ horrible things he does or says. So I see no way to separate you—"

"_What_!" I nearly shrieked; even if I had controlled my reaction _somewhat_, it was still loud and high-pitched enough that I knew Spike's ears would be ringing. "He does _not_ have eyes for me! How can you say that, after all that—"

"Calm, calm!" he soothed, laughing. "If you don't want me to say that, I won't. I can't figure out why you're so defensive, though. I would have thought you'd be pleased for _Lord_ Hiei to have eyes for you."

"Well…stop saying it that way. And don't call him 'Lord', whether you mean it or not." I was aware that we were on the other side of the icy pass, now, and I was also aware that I was still strung over his shoulder limply. "…Can you put me down, now?"

"If you wish to get down, I must ask a favor from you first."

I groaned inwardly. "What?"

"Would you please concede and admit to me that you know that he has ey—or, shall I say, that he _fancies_ you? That isn't 'saying it that way', but all the same it translates into the same thing."

"…I refuse to," I growled, feeling my eye twitch again. "He doesn't think of me that way, and you should know that. He only 'fancies' or 'has eyes for' Chichiro, and I'm not really her. Well, I'm sort of her…but not really. So he doesn't like me that way. And I'd like for you to realize—"

"You're rambling," he noticed calmly; he was still walking casually, one arm steadying me in my uncomfortable place with my stomach over his shoulder. It was actually becoming painful thanks to my still-healing injury from the end of the tournament, but it wasn't bad enough for me to alert him to it. Actually, I was more annoyed with the blood rushing to my head and the soreness of my neck if I tried to hold my head up to prevent that. It actually helped my new injuries, though—it rested my leg and it let my arm hang straight.

I sighed heavily all the same. "Will you _put me down_, already?"

"You have heard my terms. Agree to them, lest I carry you the rest of the way."

"…You jerk."

"Ah, she rejects my fair and generous offer," he mumbled forlornly. "And even still, she'd get a perfectly-fine way of transportation if she didn't agree, and yet she insults my kindness."

I groaned, squeaking a protest as he jumped my body a bit to move me to what was probably more comfortable for him. Submitting myself to the fact that he wasn't going to put me down, I didn't even consider giving in to his 'terms' as I propped my head on my hand, my good elbow digging in to his back. I hoped with a passion that it was at least annoying, but I more so wished that it hurt a bit.

After he walked for some time, I said, quite late, "I'm fine with it being that way," in a defensive tone.

"You mean your belief that he prefers Chichiro over you?"

"Yes, and it should be that way anyway."

"Way, anyway," he quoted, seeming to find humor that I didn't see in the fact that I'd said 'way' twice in a row with different words. He returned to the other conversation after his amusement had ceased. "Whether you believe it or not, you _are_ Chichiro's reincarnation, and a great part of Chichiro is within this half of you. The other part of her is in your yami, and when you merge, you will become her once more."

I blinked. "How the hell did you know I had a yami?"

"Well, that's why you have a human form," he responded, as if it were common knowledge. "And do speak up—I can't really hear you well when you're back there."

I rolled my eyes, knowing he could hear me fine—shadowcats had amazing hearing, and he was simply asking that to point out again that he was still carrying me, just to piss me off. It worked mildly, and I found that I didn't have any desire to respond.

About ten minutes passed; about eight minutes into that dialogue-lacking silence, Spike had begun to hum something that seemed extremely familiar, and I had the sense that the shadowcat knew that I would recognize the song. He hummed it cheerily, and I found myself wondering if he was manic; he had, after all, been cold and blank toward me before, and he was now carrying me and humming and teasing me as if the events in the Tournament had never happened. Of course, I didn't really think he was manic, at least not too much; most of his sour attitude toward me seemed to have happened when Hiei was around, and directly after Hiei was around. Now that more than a half-hour—probably closer to forty-five minutes—had passed, he was relaxed and more like the Spike I had known again.

"What is that song?" I asked after a short while of listening.

"I'm not sure you'd recognize the title, but I can sing it if you'd like."

I nodded, and quieted as he began to sing in a low, rich voice that sounded much…well, _better_ than I would have assumed from him. I guess I didn't often see guys who looked like he did—extremely handsome, and yet goofy and fun—who could sing well. Were _all_ non-humans good at singing, or something…? "_San meracura in da oniye_

_Imper a tur ae ma chi_

_In a matecumbra in da oni iche_

_Isis kai donyis kai reichi_." He paused for a moment before going on, and in that time I knew that I recognized the song. The language sounded familiar, as well, and in my mind I could translate a few words. 'San meracura' was speaking to someone, calling them 'San, Mother' and 'kai reichi' meant 'I'm ready.' "_Isis kai donyis kai fa ote ku_

_Imper a tur ae donye_

_In a matecumbra in da oni iche_

_Isis kai reisis kai reichi_."

I blinked, feeling oddly serious despite my current position (Which made it extremely hard for me to take my thoughts seriously.). "What language was that?" I asked finally, unable to find a complimenting word that would suit how well I thought he'd sung.

"Kaoorish," he responded, seeming pleased with himself as if he could read from my body language that I had enjoyed listening to it.

Kaoorish was another word for Karn—Aletta was Kaoorish. The Kaoor were werewolf-like creatures who had large bodies that were a bit like a warped wolf body on two legs (Though they could easily walk on four legs like a wolf. It just wasn't common—they ran on four legs, however.), and they had wolf-like faces. They were good-sized creatures, and it would have been odd to see one at the height of an average human unless they were very young. Aletta herself was eight feet tall, though she had nothing but a spiritual form to show off her height. Since no one but me could see her as she was—even when she took control of my body, she was not in her own form. I guess that would be a good thing for those who saw her, as I doubted they would be able to face her without fear—I generally told people that she was a demon. Most just accepted that fact, but I sensed that Hiei could tell what she honestly was, and perhaps see her spiritual form. The Kaoorish breed had gone extinct thousands of years ago, at least in the human world—perhaps they were still alive in this world or another in Makai?—though some were reincarnated in this time like Aletta. Karn are only reincarnated once, however, which was why I was so surprised to hear that I had also been Chichiro in a past life.

"Where did you learn a Kaoorish song?" I queried when I finally found my voice.

"Kaoorish songs are common knowledge to shadowcats. Kaoor and Shadowcat were often allies—at least in the instance of Inuichis and the Karn—back in the time when the wolves thrived."

"I see." I felt stunned to have learned this, as I had honestly believed that no other being knew of Karn but me, now. I had often thought that Aletta was the last Karn, and that I was the only one who knew of the species because of that. "Did you ever know a Karn?"

He laughed in response. "How old do you think I am? I wish I had the pleasure, but no, I never knew a Karn." For a moment I thought I saw his eyes flash in a way that told me what he'd said was false, but he looked forward (He had been looking over his shoulder) again before I could delve any deeper into his glance.

Spontaneously, I thought I could sense Hiei, and I said to Spike, "Put me down."

"We've been over this. Unless you agree to—"

"No, I'm serious!" I struggled in his grasp, and he finally sighed and set me down. "I can sense Hiei."

He gave me an odd look. "I don't sense anything."

I raised my eyebrows. "How can you not sense that? His energy is so strong, it's completely—"

A rift-tear suddenly tore above us, and Hiei dropped down and landed neatly beside me, standing from his crouch and regarding me with a curious look, as if he was wondering why we were here.

"—obvious."

Spike stared at Hiei for a moment, then looked to the rift-tear, and then began laughing. When I stared at him with the same odd look he'd given Hiei, he said though his snickering, "The rift wasn't even _open_ yet and you sensed him." He laughed again, pressing his thumb and index finger against his closed eyes as he tried to stop laughing. "I can't believe you sensed him that fast. That's just…Hah! _That's_ devotion. Damn."

I gave him a strange look, then turned to Hiei. "What is he talking about?" I wondered aloud, only half expecting Hiei to actually answer.

The fire demon amazingly did, and he said, "It's nearly impossible to sense someone in a different plane if there isn't a rift nearby, even more impossible without trying. It's remarkable that you were able to sense me, especially with your sensing handicap, and by Spike's reaction, you did it easily."

I just blinked, clueless. "…Okay, then." Still not understanding why Spike had found it so funny, or why he had considered the cause to be 'devotion', I looked to the shadowcat.

He had calmed his laughter by now. "I suppose you'll be leaving together, now?" he commented, still smiling lightly.

"Yes," Hiei responded. "I took care of the rift back in human world, and now we have time to worry about how to get back with Ketsue wounded."

"Well, jeez, don't act like I'm unconscious and bleeding to death," I muttered indignantly.

"If you were unconscious, I assure you that getting you back to Ningenkai would have been much simpler," Hiei growled back. "Then I could just carry you. But you don't seem to really fancy the idea at the moment, or at least you didn't when I left, so I doubt that will work."

"I didn't say anything about not wanting to be carried," I mumbled, confused.

"No, but you didn't want my help standing up even if it would have been much easier, and you didn't want to be carried before we began fighting."

"…Good point."

"I always have a good point," Hiei muttered, and looked up at the rift-tear he'd come through. It was closing, and just as he looked forward again, the sky completely finished sewing back together. "There's an irregularly large amount of rifts and rift-tears here," he noted aloud, seeming to find it strange, and he began walking before even telling me where we were going.

As I walked past Spike, I fought the urge to hug him—I'd actually missed him. But I doubted that even though he had _really_ seemed to like me back at the Tournament that he'd like for me to hug him now—he was still bitter about Zerathus, as I knew from how he had acted back on the ice. Even if he was being friendlier now, and more to his normal self, I wasn't sure what would be allowed. So I simply put a hand on his shoulder as I passed him, saying, "It was nice to see you, Spike."

He looked after me, his gaze telling me both that he wanted to say something and that my contact had been surprising to him, but he bit back whatever it was he wanted to say and just smiled. "Yes, I admit I enjoyed seeing you as well. Fare well wherever you go." He gave a swish of his arm, a kind of wave, and then turned away and began walking the way we had come.

When I looked to Hiei, he had an unreadable expression on his face, and I blinked once. I was unable to try and read into it, as he looked away just like Spike had before. I would have shrugged, had my arm not been so immobile, and I went after him as he continued walking—I guessed he had stopped when I spoke briefly to Spike.

As we walked, I stepped into his footsteps in the snow, not really conscious of it and doing it out of habit. Hiei glanced backward at me and noticed, shaking his head lightly. "You're such a child," he mumbled, lacking tone.

I attempted to glare at him and found myself a bit embarrassed now that he mentioned what I was doing, and the glare failed, so I just looked at my shoes and stopped stepping in the holes in the snow that he left, muttering, "I can't help it," lamely, but covering with a muffled, "Jerk," at the end.

I felt Hiei's eyes on me after had walked for a few minutes, though I wasn't sure where we were walking to and simply followed his lead out of habit, and I knew where his eyes were directed—my arm. It still hurt relatively bad, but it was beginning to numb up, which I wasn't entirely sure was a good thing. My leg, on the other hand, still felt lousy enough that I wasn't worried, but okay enough that I could walk fine. "How is it?" he asked, a predictable enough question if he hadn't been…well, if he hadn't been himself. And if it weren't such an un-Hiei-like question.

Still, I figured that was only because I was still somewhat bitter for whatever reason about Nirvana's transformation—he had asked similar things in the past, and I hadn't found it strange before now, least not lately. So I said, "Since when did you get so nice and concerned about me?"

I could feel the smirk that spread across his face. "I should probably say here 'Since you nearly died and I realized I'd miss you if you kicked it', right?"

I just snorted and didn't answer.

"So say the laws of sentimentalism," I think I heard him mutter, but it was incoherent. Louder, and in his normal tone, he continued, "Really, how is your arm? Is it moveable at all?"

"You said yourself that you thought it was broken," I growled back, glaring at my shoes as I walked and finding myself oddly annoyed by my uneven limping gait . "I don't think it's moveable and I don't care to try it."

"Fair enough. I suppose fighting is out of the question for you, then."

Something about the way he said it made me reluctant to lift my eyes, but I stopped when I heard him slow and finally forced myself to look up. Ahead of me was a rift-tear, and I raised my eyebrows. "So…we leave through this?"

"Since you're useless in fighting, you will."

I began to turn to him. "Useless for fighting what? There's nothing but a rift-tear in front—" Of course, it was what was _behind_ us that mattered, not what was in front of us, and so I cut off.

They were about as large as a small bear, or at least the relative size I'd assume a small bear to be. They roughly resembled scorpions, only _very_ large ones, and though they had four sets of legs that could almost be considered scorpion-like, where back legs would have been on a normal creature was a singular limb; there were two thighs that were separate until it was directly beneath their bodies, where it became a reptilian-like leg that ended in a large, three-toed foot with mean-looking claws. Two other limbs, pincers resembling a mix between lobster and scorpion claws, were visible near the front of their body before the four sets of legs. The front-most creature's face seemed like a mix between a scorpion, as it had pincers on its jaws and beady, round black eyes, and a demented lizard-dinosaur cross. Its short maw was curved out in an almost triangular way, and the many rows (backed up into its bared mouth like a shark's) of oddly-shaped hook teeth inside didn't make it look to friendly. Staying true to the scorpion comparison, the largest appendage (nearly larger than its entire torso) on its body was an arched tail with a huge, over-a-foot-long stinger. Somehow, I didn't really believe that the 'The larger the claws, the less deadly the venom' fact for scorpions was really true in this case, if it was relevant for this species at all. The stinger alone without venom looked like it could impale someone with an easily-fatal blow.

I admit that I was so surprised by the oddity of them and clear danger we were in that I was rendered immobile for a moment, but when I found that I could move, I couldn't help but think of the 'pit of flesh-eating scorpios' that Hiei and Spike had spoken about back in Z'chor. The name hinted a scorpion-likeness, or that scorpions had a likeness to scorpios, and I figured aloud, "I guess these are scorpios?"

A half-screech, half-hiss emitted from the front creature's mouth—not the mouth I had seen first, but the one directly beneath its first jaw. _It has two mouths…?_ I was able to wonder half casually. Despite my oh-so-important discovery of its interesting anatomy, I still regretted speaking.

When Hiei didn't answer, I considered asking him how to get out of this telepathically so I didn't anger the creature any further, but before I could, Hiei muttered to me, "Don't bother with telepathy. It won't do any good in keeping them from hearing it."

The front…_thing_ turned its head the slightest bit to the side, barely noticeable, its cold black eyes regarding him seriously. It didn't hiss this time, and it only blinked its filmy white eyelids and then spoke in a clumsy manner the language Hiei and I were speaking—it was some variation of demon, I guessed, but my mind automatically understood it and I didn't stop to question why I was speaking it (I never knew what language I was speaking anymore.). "_You are right. Female's mind can not close from me._" It stepped forward in the snow, its many sets of legs moving fluidly together and its over-sized back limb coming forward only once before it stopped again. "_Your mind, male, is opposite. It is not open."_ From the way it was speaking, for whatever reason I could tell it had somehow just spontaneously learned the language, and I guessed that was the only reason it was referring to Hiei and I oddly as just 'female' and 'male'.

"Perks of being a telepath," Hiei growled back calmly, and he turned to me and spoke again as if he were not concerned of the creature attacking even though it advanced another step with its back limb (Which was several steps of its front legs.). "Like I said, you're useless with fighting." He didn't even say 'now' or 'at the moment', which annoyed me, but he continued before I decided if it was worth it or not to retort. "So please, for the sake of my sanity if nothing else, don't find your way back here." There was a humorous note in his voice, but his words made me wonder.

I didn't have much time to, as Hiei stretched out his arm and pushed me backward, and I felt myself topple through the rift-tear. As my feet slid through, I could feel an odd tug on them, and I knew even before I hit the ground and was able to look up that the rift-tear was closed and that I had narrowly gotten through before it did. It took me a while before I was able to open my eyes and confirm that, however, for I had again landed on my left arm, and though I could tell I had not fallen far this time, my arm was already injured rather badly and it wasn't exactly the best time for me to land on it.

Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to sit up, glaring at the sky where the rift-tear had probably been. It wasn't cold wherever I was, at least not as cold as wherever I had been before Hiei had shoved me through the rift-tear. As I thought of that, I mumbled bitterly, "Well, jeez, maybe I wouldn't have been able to fight, he didn't have to shove me." _And make himself the only one who had to fight,_ I realized, and then wondered exactly how hard it would be to fight those creatures. I wasn't even sure if they were scorpios, as I'd never been answered, but if it was a scorpio I doubted it'd be easy to fight. By the way Spike and Hiei had spoken of the species, it was a force to be reckoned with, and by its appearance, that wasn't too hard to believe.

"Ketsue?" The way he'd spoken my name, each of the three syllables drawn out (though 'Ket' was said in a separate half from 'su-eh?'), made it clear that it was odd that I was wherever I was.

I looked up in the direction of the voice, and my eyes found Kurama. I wondered at his presence for a moment, then furrowed my eyebrows and said with little eloquence, "What the crap?"

However tense he'd seemed before, he loosened a bit and said, "What are you doing here? And…alone?"

I guess it was as odd to other people as it felt to me to be without Hiei, and I resisted the urge to shrug, which would have ended in pain if I had given in. "Well, I was shoved through a rift and fell into somewhere snowy and cold—"

"Which would explain the dampness of your hair and clothing," Kurama noticed, not sounding as though he had meant to interrupt, but only to note.

So I continued, "—and I broke my arm, or at least I think it's broken, and banged up my leg—"

"We'll have to tend to that."

"—and met Spike there, and Hiei had to go back to the human world to close a rift—"

"Hiei _can't_ close rifts," Kurama reminded me.

As if it had been my original intent, I added, "—or to fight whatever was coming out of it. So I was left alone with Spike, and he started to lead me to a rift-tear to get me back to the human world so I could meet Hiei there myself, and then he kind of psyched me out with talk about revenge. But it turns out he's still the same jack-ass joker he was before, and when Hiei showed up, Spike left and then we were surrounded or ambushed or some other sort of word similar to that by these random reptilian…scorpion…things, and Hiei shoved me back through _another_ rift-tear and I gotta say, I'm not too fond of being shoved through—"

"Scorpios?" Kurama guessed, thoughtfully and warily in the same, and I began to wonder if interrupting came natural to him as an automatic response to someone else speaking.

"Sure," I responded with irritated uncertainty. "I've never been told what a scorpio looks like, but that was my best guess when I saw them."

"Remind me again why you left Hiei alone to fight them by himself."

I was startled by the accusatory note in the fox's voice, and I growled back indignantly, "He _pushed me_ through a rift-tear! He told me I wouldn't be of much use fighting and then shoved me through without letting me object and I landed here, apparently to be accused by you of leaving him on purpose." I restrained myself from muttering a 'Fucking hell' at the end.

There was an apologetic note in Kurama's voice when he spoke next. "I wasn't accusing you. I was curious—you never seem to leave him if you know there's even a scrap of a hint of danger that could be directed at him."

"I can't tell if I'm supposed to take that as a compliment or not," I mumbled, feeling weary; my brain felt, for lack of better terms, fried.

"I'll let you consider that," he responded, neither friendly and nor harshly, and it struck me as a Hiei-like thing to say. He offered me his hand, and I linked my own good hand into it and pulled myself up. "Do you think you'd be able to find your way back there to the world your mentioned?"

"No," I said flatly, irritably, and I closed my eyes and rubbed the left side of my head, which hurt faintly. I had a headache, probably from falling twice in a row none-too-gently. "I got there through a rift and left by a rift-tear, and there's no telling how easily I'd be able to find the correct rift-tear to get back. Besides, Hiei told me not to come back."

"And that surprises you?" he queried, not sounding as though he was searching for or expected an answer. He indicated my arm. "You said it was broken?"

It hadn't been facing him, and I turned so that he could see it. "I think so. I'm not sure—can't see it, don't care to try."

Kurama's expression turned when he saw my arm, but I wasn't able to read it nonetheless. "Try what?" he asked, sounding distant.

"Try seeing it. I don't want to move it."

"Good idea," he mumbled, then knelt down to look closer at it, and he extended his arm to hold my wrist loosely.

As he began to lift my arm the slightest, I bit my lip and hissed, "Stop."

"That hurts?"

"_Everything_ hurts. Even you touching my wrist."

He looked faintly confused, and he said, "Your wrist hurts?"

"Like I said, everything does. My entire arm. Shoulder, elbow, wrist, hand, and everything in-between."

"Mainly your elbow?"

I sighed. "It's that obvious?"

"It is still bleeding," he responded, releasing my wrist and looking thoughtful, "and I can tell it's not too recent."

I blinked once looking sideways at my arm. "It was pretty recent," I corrected.

"Within the last ten, fifteen minutes?"

"…Nope."

"Then it isn't recent."

I sighed again, and looked to my leg briefly before asking, "Should it have stopped bleeding within that time?"

"Yes."

I hadn't thought it should have stopped bleeding that quickly or that easily, and I wondered if that was a demon thing, too, or if I was just uninformed involving injuries. "And what about my leg?"

"What about it?" he asked, sounding more like he was wondering aloud than actually asking me.

Even still, I assumed he expected an answer, and I said, "Well, I didn't just fall on my arm. My leg hurts, too—how does it look?"

"I can just see a bit of tearing on your jeans and a few scratches. Nothing major."

"Goody." I averted my gaze to the sky again, wondering if Kurama was going to bother healing me before we went to look for Hiei. If we did, that is—who knows, maybe Kurama actually planned on listening to the fire demon. I doubted it.

I felt a sensation on my elbow a bit like pain, but it didn't register as hurting—I just recognized that I _should_ feel like I was in pain. Incredibly hard to describe coherently if you're never felt it before. I glanced over, finding a small vine covered in oddly-shaped thorns moving across my arm, and obviously it was connected to Kurama's arm. Guess he was going to bother with healing me. "Does that have some sort of painkiller or something?"

"I wouldn't think you'd consider it a painkiller," he responded, seeming distracted, which was no surprise. "It cuts off some of the chemicals in your brain that help you register pain, but you should still feel it."

"Well, it feels like…uh…it _should_ hurt, but I guess it doesn't." I squinted as I considered how to better explain it, then just gave up. "I don't know how to say it."

"It's alright," Kurama told me, and something in his tone hinted that he wanted me to be quiet, though he said nothing, and so I shut myself up.

It took about four minutes before I felt the plant withdraw from my arm, as I had briefly felt it snake inside (Creepy feeling, that.) and do something with my bone. When I blinked questioningly at Kurama, it prompted an answer to my unspoken question easily.

"It's mainly healed, but not entirely, so I don't think you should use it quite yet. At least don't move it too much and don't fight using it."

"Alright." I finally took the time to look around me and actually pay attention to the scenery well enough to question where I was. "Where are we?"

"Japan. But we shouldn't stay—we should go find Hiei."

"But he told me not to—"

"Because you were injured and he didn't want you hurt," Kurama said immediately, looking around, though I couldn't tell what for. Again, he looked distracted. He wasn't acting as collected as he usually was, not as calculating and calm. "Nonetheless, if what you saw _were_ scorpios, then we must find him as soon as possible."

I raised my eyebrows. "They're that dangerous?"

"Even to Hiei, yes."

When he didn't stop glancing about, I asked impatiently, "What are you looking for?"

"Energy."

"…Energy," I repeated flatly. "What kind of energy?"

"Rift-tears." His tone was as impatient as mine.

I fought the urge to say 'those aren't energy' simply to keep from annoying Kurama any further (I still couldn't figure out what I'd done that had gotten him so uncharacteristically agitated.) and began to look as well, though I wasn't sure why—there obviously weren't any around.

Finally he sighed beside me. "None of them are large enough," he muttered, as if confirming something he had suspected.

However, there were none in general, as I said before, large or small. "None of what? There aren't any—"

"Never mind that now. I'm going to have to summon a portal myself."

_Ooo,_ I couldn't keep myself from thinking enthusiastically, _a portal._ I'd seen rifts before, sure, and rift-tears, but I figured that portals were probably different—after all, I'd never heard the fox use the word 'portal' for rift-tears before now and so it was a worthy assumption.

"Now," Kurama said, as he raised his hands, "I must warn you that going through a portal of this type can have some side-effects, being that I never learned from a master. Besides," he grinned, "I'm rather rusty."

"Side effects?" I quoted, looking to his hands warily. I sensed no energy being summoned or manipulated in them yet, and I figured he was waiting to do so until he explained this.

"Yes, for example, loss of—"

Being completely honest with you, I felt as though I'd just been watching a movie. His words didn't cut off, they just _ended_, and then suddenly I was back in the snow, like a scene change in a movie. I blinked several times, uncomprehending for a moment, and then said weakly in a clearly confused tone, "What the—?"

Kurama came into view, looking at me quizzically as I examined my surroundings. "Are you alright, Ketsue?" When I didn't even make the attempt to gather my thoughts enough to respond, he said, "I did warn you about…Ah, right. You probably don't remember." He seemed to find humor in whatever he'd realized, and then he said, "Before we went through, I warned you that it could result in a minor loss of memory from the time around when you traveled using the portal. Obviously it was just a bit more memory loss than I'd imagined."

"…Oookay." Not liking the feeling of not remembering an entire chunk of time, probably a minute to a few minutes, I glanced about and then asked, "Where do we go from here?"

He gave me an incredulous look, and said, "Shouldn't I be asking you that?"

"…Ah. Right." Shifting my eyes around in a half-circle, I recognized the tree-line I'd been near when I had initially fallen (And as I thought of it, I realized that the pain of my arm was almost completely gone.). Not to say the disturbed snow and pool of blood didn't help with my recognition. "That way." I pointed, indicating the trees; the snow had almost completely covered the spot where I'd hit the ground, and I could see no trace of our footsteps, and wondered how such slow-falling, calm snow had accumulated so fast.

"Can you run?" Kurama asked, walking to stand beside me, if a bit ahead toward the direction we would head.

"I think so." I nodded, and I followed his lead when he set off into the trees.

Even under the shelter of the branches, evidence of mine and Spike's travel through the forest was hard to find. It was when I wondered at the oddity of it that I realized that it was even odder that the snow was at the same level as outside the woods—it shouldn't have fallen through so easily into such thickly packed trees. Easily able to dismiss things as a 'demon thing' or 'demon world thing', I didn't question it. Kurama didn't seem bothered, and I knew if it was out of place, he of all people would have noticed.

The fox had a surprisingly easy time finding his way to where we'd gone. However, when we got to the icy pass, he stopped and looked backward at me. "Did you cross here?" he asked.

I was about to confirm that, yes, I had, but then I realized that the snow was not disturbed and the ice was not cracked. "I…it looks like where we crossed, but…"

"Ignore differences from the last time you crossed," Kurama told me, as if understanding just by my expression what I was thinking. "Pretend this is the first time you arrived to this river—is this where you crossed?"

"Uh, yes." I hadn't realized this was a river, simply because it was so wide. A lake or harbor would have seemed a better guess, but Kurama sounded as though he'd been here before and so I trusted he knew what he was talking about. "But, this isn't the first time—why isn't the ice—?"

"This world follows different laws of time than the human world does," he responded, and again I was struck with the amusing thought that he had a very hard time having a conversation with me without interrupting. I wondered with mild interest if it was because he was impatient or because he could tell that easily what I'd say before I said it. "You'll learn not to think much of things that would seem out of the ordinary in Ningenkai after you've been to enough worlds."

"Right."

The fox didn't say anything further, and headed out onto the ice.

"Hey!" I objected, following him against my instincts and experience, "the ice out here isn't too stable."

"Don't worry about it. If we go at a constant enough pace, we'll be fine."

I just gave a low sigh and didn't bother fighting it, already planning out in my head the way I'd carry out my 'I told you so's if the ice did collapse beneath us.

Whether it was fortunate or unfortunate, I didn't get to say my 'I told you so'. We crossed the ice fast and without stopping, and though I could hear a few cracks once and a while, it remained stable enough while we crossed that we went without trouble.

Not long after, I found where Hiei had come through the second rift-tear, and it briefly crossed my mind that if we had come a bit sooner, we may have passed Spike again.

From no attacker in particular, I suddenly felt a wound form on my side; again, as with Kurama's plants, it felt like it _should_ register as painful, but it numbed and just became an annoying throb within seconds. Even still, I stopped (Kurama followed my example) and lifted my shirt a short ways to find that I was bleeding from an oddly-shaped wound on the left side of my stomach. There was no hole in my clothing.

"The ofuda?" Kurama guessed, or perhaps suggested.

It made sense, and I agreed, "I guess." Looking up to Kurama, I said, "That's a bad sign, I assume?"

He raised his eyebrows at me. "Doesn't that hurt?" he asked, apparently expecting more reaction from me and ignoring the question.

Flatly, I responded, "Yes, thanks for asking." As I said before, it didn't hurt much. But I guessed that saying it did anyway—even if only for the small throb—would satisfy him enough so that he stopped asking about it. "But that's a bad sign, right?"

"I didn't think you needed a definitive answer," Kurama replied with a shrug. "I would have thought that'd be obvious."

"Well, then why are we just standing around?" I growled impatiently.

"You're the one who stopped," Kurama reminded me, and began walking again. Grumbling to myself, I followed.

It didn't take us long to find where Hiei and I had first met the scorpios, and not fifty feet before us was Hiei. There were no scorpios—if that was indeed what they'd been—around, dead or alive, but besides an identical wound to mine on his side, Hiei seemed unharmed. Of course, he didn't really seem to notice his injury, and I wondered if that was because he didn't consider it serious or significant, or because the ofuda had acted so quickly that he didn't notice it. He was pale; with blood loss or exhaustion, I wasn't sure. But he looked calm—calm enough that I knew the scorpios were long gone. "And again, you've proven how well you listen," he growled to me as we approached, and though I knew it was intended to be spiteful, his voice was almost welcoming. Almost. It was still halfway annoyed.

"Amazingly, it wasn't my fault this time," I responded, indicating Kurama without actually throwing blame. "But it still proves I'm not always obedient."

"Not always," Hiei agreed, but there was an arrogant undertone that annoyed me. His eyes flickered to my side, where my shirt was darkened with blood; his gaze shifted briefly to his own side, as if understanding the absence of pain for the first time (Which surprised me). "Are you alright?"

"It's _your_ wound, silly," I reminded him with a casual smile.

"Yes, but you're feeling it," he responded immediately, demanding again, "Are you alright?"

Confused by his tone, I said, "I'm fine." His voice hadn't been urgent or worried, but it was a close, dulled down version of the two combined.

Surprising me once again, the pain on my side stayed—he generally withdrew the ofuda's powers, though I generally suspected it was more out of habit than anything; I had the sense that perhaps he kept a permanent, small amount of his energy focused on it to keep it disengaged (Which always bothered me.). This was the second time in a row he'd allowed it to function as it should, though something in the back of my mind questioned whether it was intentional or not. After all, he had seemed to have not realized why his wound didn't hurt before he saw the identical one on the same place on my torso.

"Where'd you get the wound?" I queried finally, disregarding the reasoning behind his intentional or forced newfound acceptance of the ofuda.

"Murter," he muttered, acting as though I was one, supposed to recognize the word or name and that two, it was obvious. It was pronounced 'Mooer-tooer', with a slight roll of the tongue on the first 'r', and sounded almost Spanish to me, but I somehow doubted that's the language it originated from.

Before I could question it, Kurama quoted, "'Murter'?" He apparently knew the word. "What were you doing with Murter?" The fox, even through his new confusion, had relaxed as soon as he saw Hiei. Whatever agitation I'd caused him was immediately gone, and I wondered briefly if he had only been that way because he was worried about the fire demon.

"I wasn't congregating with him casually and by choice," Hiei growled scornfully, glaring at Kurama like an incompetent. In a friendlier—for Hiei, at least—tone, he continued, "When I recognized him, I sent Ketsue back to Ningenkai. There was no way she could hold her own against Murter, or one of his escque."

"Murter?" I spoke up.

"The scorpio who spoke earlier."

I didn't realize how clueless I sounded when I asked, "That scorpio controls escque?" until after I'd said it. Immediately, I remembered that 'escque' was not just a word for the corpse-like creatures I was used to fighting, but it was also a word that roughly translated to a term close to 'soldier'. So it could mean one of the scorpios with Murter.

Hiei seemed to pick up that I understood it without him explaining, and ignored the question. "I haven't seen Murter actually pick up a battle himself in years, especially not using his stinger."

It would have struck me as funny coming from anyone else to use 'stinger' like a common word, and following 'his' as well. Not sure why, but I guess I just had an odd sense of humor. Nonetheless, coming from Hiei, I didn't find it particularly funny—rather, he somehow made it sound like the stinger was some sort of doomsday weapon. Sure, I could understand easily how a stinger on one of those scorpios could be dangerous, but not quite as much so as the vibe coming from Hiei suggested. Feeling rather uninformed in matters outside my own world, I asked, "Why is that surprising?"

"Over the years, Murter has begun to act like a human ruler—he hasn't been fighting his own battles as often and instead sends his escque to do his dirty work," Hiei explained. "He also doesn't often begin fights, whether he carries them out himself or not."

"And why is it surprising that he used his stinger?"

Acting again as if it were obvious, Hiei said, "He doesn't use it often," and didn't offer any further explanation.

"So," I guessed, "he got you with his stinger, then?"

"Yes."

"What about venom?"

"Nonsense."

I wasn't sure if that meant 'don't worry' or 'don't be stupid, there isn't any venom.' So I just decided to ignore it, not worry, and not bother trying to decide which it was. "Well, should we be getting back to human world, now?"

Hiei and Kurama—who had been surprisingly quiet—nodded in unison and began walking off in a direction that seemed quite random. I knew better than to question their judgment, however, and simply followed them wordlessly toward a rift-tear that I myself couldn't see or sense.

* * *

When we arrived in Ningenkai, it was nighttime and I could not sense any rifts close by. I could sense two or three far off, many, many miles away, but I was tired and wanted to sleep more than anything. I was surprised by my own willingness to ignore the possible damage the demons coming from the rifts could cause, the lives they could endanger, and the humans that could be hurt or killed because of my choice to ignore it.

Hiei and I separated from Kurama immediately when we arrived in the human realm, and he entered another rift-tear; however, I recognized Sutherland Street—the street off of Jefferson that the high school was on—and began walking toward my house

I dragged myself up the stairs and flopped down onto my bed after entering the house and going upstairs (I was surprised the find the door unlocked, but Hiei told me he had simply made my parents 'forget' to lock it before they went to bed.)—not worried of making noise, as it was late enough that I knew my parents wouldn't wake easily—and I offered my dog only a small pat on the head before I wearily rolled over onto my right side. Unfortunately, it was away from the window, but I couldn't lie on my left side yet. It crossed my mind that the weariness I felt was odd for not being up too incredibly long, but I decided I could just pretend it was from the injuries from today and not worry about it. So I let sleep take me, and it did so surprisingly fast.


	31. And You're to Blame

**Disclaimer:** Neither Hiei or Yu-Yu-Hakusho are mine.

**Claimer:** Chichiro and Ketsue are mine, Kaze is BritKit, Aria is FoxWitch. While not all the characters are mine, all writing, storylines and concepts in this fanfiction (Save any YYH references) are (This includes Nirvana, Spike, all shadowcats, the shadowcat species, Escque, Mahdaegrahs/entities, scorpios etcetera.).

* * *

"God _damn it_!" I woke to Hiei half-shouting. "When did her ofuda become so strong? It still has power when she's unconscious, for Inari's sake! Do you know how much energy I had to waste to reverse the effect so that she could sleep it off?"

"No," I heard Kurama reply calmly, "and I don't care to. But recall, it's your own doing that made her power so strong."

I stayed silent, figuring that they thought I was asleep—obviously they were talking about me. But I wasn't sure what they were referring to outside that, at least not entirely; the gist of it was easy to pick up. So had I been right when I'd thought that Hiei hadn't realized it was the ofuda's effect that helped him earlier in the fight against the scorpios? Did that mean that he honestly didn't have control over it anymore…? If that was the case, then that meant that his back wound was finally healed—I hadn't felt any pain on my back before. And now I didn't feel any pain on my side, either, where the scorpio's stinger had hit Hiei. Or stabbed… impaled… whatever a stinger did. I guessed that meant that either he had healed incredibly fast, or he somehow had been able to disengage it again. He had said something about reversing the effect…

To feign that I was on the verge of waking, I made a small, tired groaning noise without opening my eyes or turning to the direction of their voices, and immediately their conversation stopped. I assumed it moved to telepathic speaking, since I sensed Kurama for a minute or two longer before his energy signal finally retreated.

I sat in silence and pretended to sleep for a short time longer, and then finally opened my eyes.

My received greeting from Hiei was, "How long have you been awake?"

"Not long." I didn't mention overhearing Kurama and him speaking.

Neither did he. "How are you feeling?"

I rubbed at my eyes and stretched, sitting up. As my back straightened, I glanced over at him, wearing a halfway confused countenance. "How am _I_?" I asked in minor disbelief. "Like I told you yesterday, it was _your_ wound, not mine. I'm fine—how are _you_?"

"You should know better than asking," he growled back, and didn't offer any further true answer.

I knew I wasn't supposed to have over-heard his conversation with Kurama, or at least he didn't think I'd been awake for it, but I was amazed he never mentioned it to me. He probably assumed that I believed I'd slept it off (naturally, at least, since that _is_ what I had done, only it was helped along, with 'it' being the wound) and thought no more of it. But the absence of pain made me suspicious, and I had to consider what Hiei had done to weaken the ofuda—he had said it had gotten stronger, and for him to say that it must have gotten _much_ stronger. Stronger enough, probably, so that he couldn't control it, perhaps to any extent. Despite my curiosity, I raised no question to it.

"Yusuke has invited us to go out and 'have fun' with he and Kuwabara, as he apparently thinks we'd actually enjoy spending the night with them." I looked up toward Hiei as he spoke again; he was still leaned against the trunk, his arms up and his hands behind his head. His eyes were closed.

"Go out and do what?" I asked, curious. I wasn't sure why, but I had to admit that in my short time away from the goon duo, I had found that I actually missed their company, if only in a minor way. Before he could answer, I noticed, "Hey, you actually said 'Kuwabara' for once rather than 'the idiot'."

"Hn. I suppose it shows that I actually know his name, if nothing else, but I'm not really sure why I bothered using it." His eyes were open now, and he glanced over at me. "The detective—" After learning that Yusuke was no longer Spirit Detective, I found it amusing that Hiei still called him 'the detective'. "—said something about bars, I think. Possibly something else about Kurama's house and Tamiko. I can't say I was really paying attention."

I raised my eyebrows as I considered it, asking, "So how did you know, anyway? I mean, that Yusuke wanted us to join him wherever. I thought you only talked to Kurama since we got back."

Hiei's eyes widened for about half a second, but it was quick enough that it was almost as if his expression hadn't changed at all and that I had imagined it. "You knew?"

"Uh…yeah." I hadn't actually noticed that I'd slipped, but I figured it didn't matter.

He gave a small, 'hn' that sounded almost like he felt awkward about me knowing, as if he believed I'd overheard something I shouldn't have. Then he seemed to recall that I'd asked a question, and said, "Kurama mentioned it to me this morning."

"Heh," I grinned, "I thought that you actually listened to Kurama. I know you don't listen to Yusuke and Kuwabara too often, but I thought Kurama was in a different category."

"Only sometimes. Most of the time I don't bother listening to him, either."

My grin widened. "Makes me wonder how often you actually listen to me, with how much I blabber on."

"Sorry," he said in a feigned air-headed manner, "did you say something?"

I threw the nearest thing, which happened to be a sock that didn't really have too much power or distance as a missile, at him and laughed out, "Shut up!" I hadn't thought of it before, but the screen would have prevented the projectile had it been there, and it was then that I noticed for the first time that the screen was off and lying against the trunk inside my room just under the window.

I thought I heard him chuckle, but he looked away before I could tell if I'd imagined it or not.

"So…bars?" I said after a moment's silence. "Am I goin' to be let into bars? I'm thirteen, remember."

When he turned back to me, he was scowling as usual, though this time for a predictable reason. "You're _not_ thirteen," he growled flatly. Then, responding to the question, "Have you ever been in a bar?"

"Only once," I remembered aloud, "when my Grandma Rose died and my mom'n her family went out to drink." When he raised his eyebrows, I quickly continued, "To mourn her, not to celebrate. My grandma was awesome."

"Humans drink to mourn people?"

"Well, haven't you ever drank to get rid of depression?" I asked. Having only drank once in my life, I wasn't sure what really drove people to drink after someone died, so I also wasn't sure how to describe exactly why my mother had gone out drinking after the death of my grandmother.

Surprisingly, Hiei actually looked down when I said that, and I wondered if he was remembering something; I guessed that was a 'yes' answer to the query. Rather than answering the question, he told me, "As long as you don't actually have anything alcoholic to drink, and as long as it's a bar that could be considered 'kid friendly', they'll let you in."

"'Kid friendly'?" I quoted angrily, tempted to find something else to chuck at him.

"Hey," he reminded me in a low tone, "_you're_ the one who called yourself thirteen, and I'm the one who said you weren't. I'm not the one thinking of you as young here."

"…Meh." I thought about it a few seconds more before speaking again, more out of boredom and dislike of silence than for necessity and to actually answer. "Who all would be there?"

"At the bar?"

"No, I mean…Well, yeah, at the bar if that's where we go. But, I meant who'd be going out with us? Just Yusuke and Kuwabara?"

Hiei shrugged, and I could see he was already becoming disinterested in the topic. "I doubt we'd be so fortunate to only have to deal with those two. I'm sure they'll drag along a few more humans."

"And Kurama?"

I was amazed by Hiei's tone when he responded; he seemed almost annoyed that I'd mentioned his friend. "The fox will probably be one of the ones they bring, yes. And that almost automatically makes Tamiko a plausible assumption, as well as Yusuke's wife and—"

"Whoa, whoa, _whoa!_" I exclaimed, interrupting. "What! Yusuke has a wife?"

"Kayko," Hiei said, nodding as he looked back at me. "You didn't know?"

"…No, but I guess it makes sense."

"Hn. Kayko, Botan, my sister and possibly Shizuru will probably come along as well."

"Yukina?" I hadn't thought that he'd so smoothly refer to her as his sister, with how secretive he'd always been. Well, I guess that was just my assumption based on the anime—I hadn't actually heard him speak of her save for when he explained to me back at Kurama's house what had happened to him in the past, and back there, I considered, he hadn't really been careful about mentioning her.

I could tell he'd read my mind thanks to the way his remark was formed. "The anime apparently covers how she is related to me, so all of Yusuke's friends plus half the human anime fan-base knows as well." It struck me as funny that he had felt the need to add in 'human' before that, as it seemed odd to think that any demons watched anime. Then again, Kurama had been the one to suggest the anime, right? And he was a demon…

Knowing I didn't need to specify who 'she' was and what she knew, I asked, "Does that mean she knows, too?"

As if irritated by the question and considering it useless as he often did, Hiei growled flatly, "Of course it does. My sister is no fool. Do you think that if everyone around her knew that she wouldn't notice?"

"Well…" I had thought to say 'That's how it was in the Dark Tournament, wasn't it?' but that was another assumption based on the anime and I didn't bother voicing it. Because it seemed that my mental barrier had weakened enough for him to be easily able to access my thoughts, I blocked that specific one from him so that he wouldn't become annoyed with me. "…Anyway, what did you mean before about 'possibly Shizuru'? I thought that she was pretty inseparable from the group."

"Not really," he said with a shrug, and to me he looked almost tangibly relieved to be off of the subject of Yukina. "She's in Spirit World most of the time anyway, so I can't say whether she'd be there or not."

I blinked once. "...Uh, Spirit World?" The first thought that came to mind was that she was dead, and I was surprised to find that the concept hit me like physical blow despite the fact that I didn't know her. Perhaps Chichiro had? "What's she doing there?"

"She works for Koenma, now," Hiei responded. "I don't know what she does there and I don't care to know."

_Huh,_ I thought, _I'll have to ask her or Kuwabara that, then._ Of course, I wouldn't remember to for a long while. "Well, I hope she is there. She's pretty cool."

Hiei quirked a single eyebrow at me, and muttered, "And where did you get that? You've never met her." Then, as he realized it, he mumbled without any tone of questioning in his voice, "The anime."

"Yup." I grinned sheepishly at him. "So, do you want to go? When is it, tonight?"

"Yes, tonight. As to your first question, I'm not sure why you even feel the need to ask."

"That's a no?"

"I refuse to give you a true answer," was his flat reply, and I could tell well enough what that meant.

"Well," I considered aloud, "you didn't really have to tell me. You could have told Yusuke that I didn't want to go without ever actually mentioning it to me and get out of going."

Without clarifying if that had crossed his mind or not to do so, he said, "I suppose that means you want to spend the night with them?"

"I guess." I shrugged. "If I only know that we'd be going to a bar, I'm not sure if I want to go or not." _But I kind of miss them_, I continued in my mind, but my mouth refused to admit something so sentimental and I didn't send the thought to him, either.

"I don't care if you decide to go or not," he told me tonelessly, "but I hope you'll decide soon."

Wondering why he seemed so eager to leave, I asked, "Why? Will it take a while to get there?"

"Not too long, but remember that we need to tell them our answer anyway."

As you probably predicted, I chose to go. It would get me back to Japan on a lighter note than the last time, and I wouldn't be limited to one house where I couldn't really see much anyway and was constantly in enough pain to keep me rooted to one spot for most of the time.

We set off for Japan about an hour after I told Hiei my decision, and we headed for Ontario (Not Ontario, Canada, but Ontario, New York, since most people I know still get that wrong even though I now live in Ontario.) and most likely toward the rift-tear we'd use.

Our pace was fast for about an hour, and if we had walked, it would have taken a couple to a few hours instead. I wasn't sure of the distance besides the measurement relative to time. We slowed when Hiei dropped down from the trees onto the road and began to cross a field. Only then did I pick up that it was drizzling—before, I had been beneath the trees and not paying much attention to the scenery.

The ground was wet, and the mud caked my bare feet. I didn't really notice the slight pinch when I stepped on a stick or broken stalk in the field, and I followed after Hiei wordlessly. The slosh of my feet seemed out of place, as Hiei was able to be near silent as he half-walked, half-jogged.

A small building was ahead just inside the tree line; it was a broken-down…well, shack, so it seemed. I blinked as we neared it, and as I realized we were heading for it.

"What is this place?" I asked, and then suggested without much seriousness, "Your secret hideout?"

He glanced back at me like I'd lost my mind. "'Secret hideout'?"

"You know, like in the movies where there's a normal-looking, old, abandoned building that has a few switches on the walls that open a high-tech basement lair."

Hiei's stare lingered on me a moment, and then he just shook his head, muttered something incoherent and told me to follow him.

"What? No secret lair and you _still_ want me to go in?"

With an exasperated sigh, he growled, "Yes, I do. I'm not sure what objection you have."

"Well, for one thing, it's probably really dirty in there."

"Well then, take a shower when we get there." I assumed that 'there' could only mean Japan, but I didn't think that we'd be anywhere with a shower save for possibly Kurama's house, which I doubted we'd be at long. I didn't really see much logic in that suggestion. "But for now, I think you can handle it."

When he said that, an idea struck me, and I blinked once. "How do you stay so clean all the time? I mean, I've never seen you take a shower."

He quirked a brow at me, and said, "Do you _expect_ to see me take one?"

I felt my face get hot, and I looked down. "Uhm…right. Never mind."

Shaking his head again, he bent his legs and slid underneath the half-doorway and disappeared into the dark. I peered through the posts, unable to see much.

"…Do you honestly expect me to go in there?"

He ducked back out, looking at me queerly. "Why shouldn't I?"

"I'm allergic to spiders. I can't go in there—it'll be crawling with them."

He studied me a moment, then asked, "What if I told you that you only thought that you were allergic to them and if you believed you weren't that you wouldn't be?"

I waited for my mind to register that, then muttered, "I'd say that you had too much time on your hands and that you'd used that excuse one too many times."

He blinked innocently. "I only used it once other than now."

As I thought back to when we had just begun training, when he told me that if I thought I'd be able to see my energy that I would be able to, I growled, "Like I said, _one_ too many."

He shrugged. "It was worth a try." Then, as he went back inside, he said, "Fine, then, wait out here."

As the realization that I only had two choices—go in and go to Japan or stay like he'd said—dawned upon me, I sighed heavily, the broken down building somehow seeming much more welcoming now that I was alone outside, and muttered, "Okay, wait for me."

Inside, there was a small glow about ten or fifteen feet in (Farther than I'd given the building's length credit for.), and I could faintly make out Hiei heading for it. Briefly the glow faltered, and I could assume easily that Hiei had gone through the rift-tear. While making my way for it myself, I tripped at least three times over random objects on the ground before I was able to leap through the rift-tear. Simply because of what happened last time, I had been careful to leap through feet-down and not at an angle, but the rift-tear was located surprisingly close to the ground, and I could have simply stepped into it and onto the ground on the other side. Or, as it seemed when I realized where I was, the floor. The mini-portal had connected to a roof of a building, apparently.

Glancing around, my eyes found Hiei walking toward what I assumed was the door leading to stairs. Rather than enter the door, however, he sprang up onto the top of the structure in a single leap, his hands in his pockets. Turning back to look at me, he asked, "Coming?"

It took us only a few minutes to get to Kurama's house. I wasn't able to pay attention to much because of how fast we were going and how slow my eyes seemed to be that day, but from what I picked up, the city we were in was _huge_. Easily larger than St. Louis, Missouri, where I had lived for three years when I was younger. There was no gradual change, either, to get to the suburbs and then the semi-rural area—it just dropped off, almost spontaneously, and the land became more open, the houses more spaced.

Hiei dropped onto Kurama's front porch (Which was impressive in size) and let me down, glaring sideways immediately. I followed his eyes and found that they had sought out to give Yusuke a threatening look, as if challenging him to make a comment about the fact that Hiei had carried me. The spirit detective only grinned from his lazed position on Kurama's hammock, and then sat up and stood. In an aggravatingly-charming, Spike-like way, he asked simply, "Shall we?"

* * *

Tokyo, as apparently was the city where we were, was huge. Humungous, mammoth, gargantuan…I don't think there was a word for it. I was amazed by how few cars we saw, since New York City(The closest thing I could find save for Vegas to compare it to)'s streets were always so crowded with traffic. The people there seemed to all be the same in a way to me, and then at the same time ridiculously different in their dress and hair. The amount of cell phones also astounded me. I hadn't really thought of Japan as a place to have such an abundance of cell phones, but nine out of ten people had them, if not nine-point-five or more.

Though there were plenty of people with dyed blonde hair, I assumed I was the only natural blonde in a several mile radius, and it did not surprise me that I often felt as though I was being stared at. It could have also been that I was blatantly-obviously not from Japan or Japanese and traveling with a group of people (Hiei, Yusuke and Kurama. Apparently we would meet Kuwabara and the rest of the group elsewhere later in the day.) that could be considered strange. Still, I never actually caught anyone staring at me—I just _felt_ it, but every time I turned, no eyes were on me.

I had to follow ridiculously close to Hiei or Yusuke or Kurama—whoever happened to be in front of me at the time, really—to make sure I didn't lose them in the crowd, which I did several times. Every time I did so, I only had to wait a few seconds before Hiei grabbed my wrist and began tugging me in a new direction and then released my wrist as soon as he was positive I was following.

Finally, we ducked back away from the crowd into a quite random alley, and I watched in amazement the waves of people flocking by just past us.

"So," Yusuke spoke up, "what should we do with our day? We have a lot of time to kill before it'd be worth it to head for the karaoke bar."

I blinked over at Yusuke. "Karaoke bar? Not just a normal bar?"

"Pfft, where's the fun in a normal bar?" Yusuke responded, grinning at me wolfishly. "Really, though. What're we going to do for the few hours we have left?" His chocolate eyes swept over me up and down, as if considering what to do with me, and then he grinned again. "Shall we take her to play Pachinko(1)?" Yusuke asked, his grin widening with an inner humor I couldn't understand if I didn't even know what he was talking about.

Hiei glared at Yusuke, growling flatly, "No."

I blinked once, looking at both of them as Yusuke snickered and Hiei seemed to try and ignore him again. "What's Pachinko?"

At the same time, Hiei said, "Nothing important," and Yusuke said, "My third life."

I figured that Yusuke meant his human life and his spirit detective (Or spirit world involved, since he wasn't the spirit detective anymore.) life as the first two, but he suggested something else before I could ask again what it really was.

"Alright," he said thoughtfully, "then can we take her to get some fugu?"

I thought I saw Hiei's eye twitch, but his flat response was again just a simple, "No."

"What's fugu?" I asked, wondering if I'd get an actual answer.

I didn't. They just repeated their other replies: Hiei said "Nothing important" as he glared warningly at Yusuke, and Yusuke said, "My fourth life."

Hiei later told me it was a kind of fish (2), but I didn't understand exactly how a _fish_ could be that large a part of someone's life. Hiei also said that he had always thought it was the reason Yusuke was so screwed up in the mind, but he didn't elaborate on that, either.

"The amusement park!" Yusuke declared after a long moment's consideration.

"Say what?" I growled, not really regarding the thought with much enthusiasm. I obviously hadn't thought it worth it to bring along swim gear, and I detested normal rides at amusement parks, so I saw no possible way that I could enjoy myself there.

"_Everyone_ loves the amusement park," the detective continued on blindly, not seeming to care that I didn't fancy the idea and that Hiei and Kurama weren't really paying too much attention to the concept or conversation in general. "Of course, we have to meet with Kuwabara and the girls first, but hey, we can pass along the plans and see if they like it."

"I don't," I muttered, though not loudly. If the rest of them wanted to go, I wouldn't stop them. I hated being the boring one who didn't want to do anything that normal people considered fun.

We met near a random-seeming statue of a dog with Kuwabara, Kayko, Yukina, and Shizuru (I had to resist grinning at her in my creepy fangirl manner, which proved to be incredibly difficult). Kurama briefly explained something about why there was a dog statue there when he realized I didn't understand its point, but it was rather loud and I couldn't hear him. However, I think the noise came solely from our group.

When I asked why Botan wasn't there, I was told by Kayko (Who seemed to have a hard time not staring at me, though she often caught herself when she did so and attempted to stop, probably to be polite. I was used to that reaction from people who knew me as Chichiro's reincarnation when they met me the first time in my new form.) that she had something more important to do in Spirit World, but that she was disappointed all the same in not being able to meet me.

Yukina was almost unbearably innocent-seeming, so I learned that day. The anime was correct in most things about her personality, though not as much in appearance. Her hair was more bluish than green, shorter than it was in the anime, though her eyes were the same crimson as Hiei's and she was his height—minus a few centimeters—as well. I also realized something else—by the way that she and Hiei were around one another, I guessed that they had not ever actually spoken about being siblings, and that Yukina just had a hunch and was not positive about it. I figured that meant that Hiei had used his jagan on her and had seen that she knew.

Although I didn't really concentrate on how to get there, while we were on our way to the amusement park, I did stare at our surroundings quite a bit. Tokyo really was an astounding city, though it would be as vain to attempt to explain it as it would have been for me to explain what it was like months back when I was at the wolf reserve in New Jersey.

I barely even realized we were in line for tickets before we were out and heading off to the rides. The 'amusement park' was apparently Disney Land, so I learned when I saw that most, if not all, of the rides were Disney-themed. Yukina and Kuwabara—Yukina had looped her arm into his, which was a funny sight with their height difference—set off in a seemingly random direction, and then Kayko and Kurama also went off together (Odd sight, I must admit, but Kayko probably would have gone with Yusuke if his destination had been more…interesting.) while Shizuru and Yusuke planned to go to the game stands. That would leave Hiei and I alone. How surprising. (Note incredibly heavy sarcasm.)

Before he and Shizuru left our small group, Yusuke asked, "Where are you guys heading? The tunnel of—"

"I _will_ kill you," Hiei warned, though the line came off so naturally that I knew the threat was well worn from many years of using it against the detective.

To prove that it was familiar to him, Yusuke cut off as naturally as if he had already finished his sentence and began a new one. "You could go for the roller coaster…That's pretty awesome."

"I hate roller coasters," I grumbled flatly.

"How can you hate 'em?" Yusuke cried, seeming offended even though I was fairly sure that he had no relation to the rides personally. He was strange enough, though, that if he told me he was biologically related to a roller coaster that I wouldn't have been surprised. Wouldn't have believed it, either, but it wouldn't surprise me. "You must have been on some pretty crappy roller coasters to hate 'em."

"I've never been on one," I responded, "unless you count that kiddy one when I was three or four. Cried the whole time. I don't intend to repeat the experience now that I'm older and still as much of a wimp about heights."

Yusuke stared at me for a moment, and then looked to Hiei, telling him, "Don't be nice and let her leave," as the detective grabbed my elbow and dragged me over to the line for the roller coaster.

Indignantly, I growled, "I am _not_ going on this ride! You can't make me!"

"Yeah," Yusuke sighed in a notably false forlorn tone, "I can't." He then gave me a devious look that I dreaded the cause for, and continued, "But _he_ can," as he poked Hiei once.

Hiei reached out to snap the finger that had prodded his shoulder, or so I assume was the movement of his arm, but Yusuke snatched his hand back warily and glared briefly at the fire demon. He'd obviously had the same assumption as me about Hiei's intentions.

"And how do you suppose he'll do that?" I questioned Yusuke shortly, my lack of enthusiasm ever-present in my voice.

"Like this," Hiei responded in place of the detective, and actually picked me up and threw me over his shoulder like Spike had back in the ice world that I still had no name for.

"H…_HEY!_" I cried, struggling as he walked toward the ride. "You can't be serious! You're on _Yusuke's_ side? I object!"

"And I don't care," he told me simply, and then I felt myself being dropped onto something, and I found myself in the seat of the ride.

"Damn it!" I moved to escape, but he kept me there, seeming to greatly enjoy my fear of the roller coaster. "No! I don't want to ride this!" He set a hand casually in front of him as he sat down, blocking me from getting out, and I tried again, "Let me off!"

I was apparently making more of a ruckus than I thought I was, as the person controlling the ride actually came over to ask what was going on.

After briefly glaring his warning, Hiei turned away from me. "She's fine," he assured the young man, glancing back over at me with his challenging 'Don't-be-so-weak' look.

I whimpered. "You jerk," I whispered weakly, but I could tell that the man was convinced that I was okay, and as he stood back to go start the ride, I latched onto Hiei's (impressively muscular)arm. "I don't want to do this; I don't want to do this," I chanted, not caring that at any other time I'd probably be flustered at hanging off of his upper arm.

"You're able to easily cut through this harness with your energy," he reminded me, tapping the cage-like contraption that was holding me in the ride, "and you've jumped and survived from much higher up than this. What are you afraid of?"

"Oh, I don't know, how fast we'll be going?" I hissed back, then felt another wave of panic as the ride jerked into motion, and I hugged his arm closer. I could feel just by the minor stiffness of his muscles for a short moment that he was trying not to chuckle at how much of a wuss I was being about this.

"Need I remind you that you've fallen from higher than this—"

"You already said that."

"—while fighting demons that are much 'scarier' than this ride?" he continued, as if I hadn't said anything.

"I know but…well…Screw you!" Because my fear decided that I should throw a few more semi-angry-but-profanity-lacking words at him, I finished, "Shut up! I'm scared easily, okay?"

We were nearing the top. I tried to focus either on his eyes or my hold on his arm, but I could do neither. The top of the ramp seemed more ominous than any of my enemies, and when I really thought about it, that was pitiful. We were at an amusement park. This was an amusement park ride. Why the hell was I so scared?

As if seconding my thoughts, Hiei spoke up again. "How can you be scared when I'm right next to you?"

I resisted another whimper, and was about to answer that I didn't know, when I realized that we were just beginning to crest the top of the ramp, and as the ride began to drop down onto the much steeper opposite side, I felt a shriek rising in the back of my throat.

By the end of the ride, I was raising my arms every time we went over a hill, no longer holding onto Hiei, and shouting enthusiastically rather than screaming. Of course, this had been predictable to everyone but myself, but I was still shaking rather pathetically nonetheless when we got off. Still, as soon as we stepped off, I grabbed his wrist (He had begun walking toward the other ramp to get back onto the walkway to get to other rides or to our group) and dragged him back to the first ramp to get back in line. "We're going again," I said firmly, and he raised his eyebrows at me, and though I could clearly see it was hard for him to do, he restrained himself from saying 'I told you so', or whatever he would have said that was similar.

After a few more rounds, he was actually the one who had to tell me to stop going on, not the other way around. Grudgingly I agreed to leave the ride alone, and then asked him where we were supposed to meet everyone.

"Hell if I know," he mumbled with a shrug, glancing around, though I wasn't sure if that was to scout out the next ride to torture me with or to seek out any of the familiar faces we'd come along with. "But I doubt you can so easily forget that I have a rather reliable way of contacting anyone anywhere, so I don't think finding them will be a problem."

I figured that he didn't use the word 'jagan' because unlike in America, even people who didn't watch anime might actually recognize the word. "…Meh." I looked toward the Ferris wheel briefly, sensing familiar energy in that direction.

Hiei obviously knew where I was looking and what I was thinking, as he said, "Yukina and the idiot are on that. If you have even the remotest interest, don't bother. I refuse to get on that, especially with that buffoon riding it."

It was my turn to torture, I decided, and I began to plot out how to get him on the ride. Unfortunately for me, after we had gone on a few more rides, we met up with Kurama, Shizuru, Yusuke and Kayko and went off for a few group rides before they all decided to fetch Kuwabara and Yukina and leave. Before I managed to get Hiei on the Ferris wheel. Damn. _Well,_ I told myself, _I hate heights anyway, so it isn't much of a loss for me._

Something flickered in my mind for the faintest of a second, then. "_You can see the whole park from up here!"_

"_Damn it, Chichiro, there are bars on this for a _reason_, you know. For Inari's sake, would you sit down before you fall? I don't feel like playing the hero today."_

As quickly as it had come, the spontaneous, short conversation slipped from my mind, but I wondered nonetheless if I had just remembered something from my past life. I figured I must have—I heard Chichiro's name, and my daydreams weren't usually so…random. The voices hadn't had any real defining features of their own to make them recognizable, save for tones, but I had to guess that it must have been Chichiro speaking first, and then Hiei.

"Hey!" I heard Yusuke's voice shout. There was a pause, and no one responded to it, and just as I turned to look at him to see if he was speaking to me, I sensed him behind me, and directly into my ear, he yelled the loudest I figured his lungs could manage, "I said, 'HEY', SPACEY! _PAY ATTENTION_!"

I winced and made a small whimpering noise, and before I could stop myself, my fist flew over my shoulder and crashed into Yusuke's face. "Shut up, jack-ass! I have sensitive ears, damn it!" Not really caring about him whining about his pain, I spat, "_Jeez_! Fucking _ass hole_!"

I thought I heard Kurama, Kayko and Shizuru chuckling, and I was _sure_ I heard Kuwabara cracking up, but I ignored them. "Was that _really_ necessary?" Yusuke asked sheepishly, dabbing a finger at the end of his bleeding nose.

"Are _you_ necessary?" I grumbled back, rubbing at my ear. I admit, the line wasn't original—I'd found it on an internet bumper sticker website. However, it still earned a few laughs and Yusuke's indignant look, and it satisfied me enough that I didn't mind stealing it.

"Man," Kuwabara said behind me, probably to Yukina, "I've never heard her swear that many times in a row."

I didn't bother alerting him to the fact that his whispers were in vain if he was trying to keep me from hearing, though I would have thought that would have been obvious to anyone but him after I _just_ mentioned how sensitive my ears were. "Well," I muttered, ignoring Yusuke and Kuwabara completely now, "where are we going from here?"

Seemingly recovered from his punch in the face already, the detective behind me cried, "The karaoke bar!" with the utmost possible enthusiasm.

I rolled my eyes, sticking to my decision to disregard all comments made by him, and just waited to see what everyone else's reactions were. I had thought Yusuke wanted to wait until later into the day, but now as I looked to the sky I realized we had spent more time here at the park than I had thought. It _was_ later into the day, so there was no point in waiting.

The rest of the group shared my thoughts and agreed with Yusuke (Well, all save me and Hiei. I didn't agree because I didn't want to acknowledge at the moment that Yusuke existed, and Hiei just didn't care.).

Again, I didn't pay attention to how we got there. I was too busy staring in wonder at everything around us (also again) and considering once more how much America sucked. Even still, I couldn't imagine living in Japan. For one thing, I didn't _really_ know the language (I did because Hiei's jagan made me know it. But I hadn't learned it myself and if he decided not to let me know it, I wouldn't.), and the customs were too strange to take in and live in without visiting several times before moving, and the roads were even switched relative to the US. Besides, I was stared at enough back 'home' for the way I dressed—I didn't quite feel like moving somewhere where I was stared at even more often because of my hair color, eye color, nationality and the fact that I'd always remain looking like a tourist even if I _did_ live there.

We were in the bar before I could look to the sign, which led me to wonder if Hiei had given me the ability to read Japanese as well. I doubted it, but it still made me curious. One look to the first sign (Which happened to be a random ad with smaller, English letters translating beneath the kanji) proved that no, he had not made it so I could read Japanese.

I was snapped from these thoughts by a distractingly loud shout from Yusuke, which was, "Come _on_! You're not social enough—this is a _great_ place to start!"

This was apparently directed at Hiei. "There is no way you'll be able to get me on that stage," he growled flatly, his dangerous, irritated glare on Yusuke.

The ex-detective grinned over at me. "Maybe your demon girl will change your mind…? Bribe you with something?"

I felt my eye twitch, and when Yusuke looked like he enjoyed my annoyance, I decided I didn't want to know what his version of bribery was, or what the 'something' was that he had planned. I looked to Hiei. "If he promises to never call me 'your demon girl' ever again, will you do it?"

Hiei narrowed his eyes at me. "You're actually _supporting_ this idea?"

I shrugged lightly, having easily picked up that Yusuke hoped that Hiei would sing on stage. "It'll shut him up, and I can stop being labeled 'your demon girl' every time someone refers to me. At least if it's Yusuke doing the referring. Besides, I don't mind hearing you sing."

Yusuke's eyes widened like he was listening in on exclusive information he wasn't supposed to hear. "You've heard him sing before?"

I glared sideways at him. "Why does it matter?"

"You have?"

Warily, I responded, "Yes…" One could never be sure _what_ was safe to say around someone so…_enthusiastic_ about certain things.

Fortunately, he only grinned. _Un_fortunately, it was that creepy, couple-shipping grin that he always used when addressing me as the nickname that was currently Hiei's bait for singing.

Speaking of, the fire demon cursed under his breath and muttered, "Fine. If you agree to never call Ketsue that again, I'll agree to this God-damned deal."

Yusuke started laughing, and while he was still chuckling he said, "Jeez, you're acting like I'm asking you to kill someone or somethin'." For a moment, he looked to be considering something, and he said, "Well…no. Then you'd agree to it faster…" Trailing off, he shrugged and seemed to forget the idea. "But okay, if it gets you on that stage, I'll agree." He stuck out his hand to shake for the deal, his grin never faltering.

Hiei curled his lip at the hand like it was festering with pus, and then just grunted as he stood, walking toward the stage with his hands in his pockets as usual.

I found myself snickering along with Yusuke before he actually got onto the platform.

"Think he'd let me choose the song?" Yusuke hissed in my ear.

"Don't push your luck," I whispered back.

As Hiei picked something to sing, I felt some sort of strange energy approaching. An extremely familiar form of energy. Was it…Shadowcat? It definitely wasn't Spike, I knew.

"Tamiko!" Kurama called, and I looked over to see him waving to someone behind me.

Turning around and looking toward the door, I saw a silver-haired woman not much taller than I walking into the bar, a small, content smile on her face. Her cold eyes seemed to lack expression, as was common for shadowcats, but she had no mark on her brow like Spike and the other shadowcats I had known. Still, it was believable enough to me that she was one, though if it was her cat-like way of walking, her emotionless eyes or simply the demeanor she wore that clued it off to me, I wasn't sure. It could have also been that I only knew of one Tamiko that Kurama would be familiar with, and that I doubted silver hair was common in Japan, but I decided to ignore that and pretend I had picked it up by less obvious hints.

As she moved to stand behind Kurama, a single arm rested lightly on his shoulder, she scanned the table briefly before her eyes stopped on me. For a moment I wasn't sure what to think of her look—it was like sadness, happiness, anger and annoyance all mixed. And then she smiled, though it did not carry to her eyes, and she said casually, "Hey, Chichiro. You always seem to be late, don't you?" She then leaned forward and proceeded to kiss me on the lips. As she pulled back, grinning casually over to Kurama and asking him where he found me, I blinked several times, stunned. Hiei, who could see us from the stage, didn't seem to think anything of it for some reason, and Kurama only looked mildly surprised and said nothing of it.

Before I could decide whether or not to raise the question of what the kiss had been for, I heard a mind in my voice explaining it. Oddly, it was Kurama's and not Hiei's. _Kissing is a form of greeting for shadowcats—it's a tradition that isn't often carried out any longer, but Tamiko sticks to the etiquette set from years ago._ I glanced over at him and gave the slightest nod of thanks for the explanation, and I could read in his eyes the same thing I was thinking—_I didn't know it qualified for greeting the same gender, as well._ Hiei seemed to know that, though, and with mild humor I wondered how he had known. Then my sensible, less amused side told me it was just because he was used to strange demon customs and because he had a jagan and was generally not surprised by very much.

Whatever it had been, I was relaxed now, and I would have hugged Tamiko, I think, if the music hadn't started. I didn't recognize her in any way, shape or form from this lifetime, but there was a fierce sentimentalism I felt when I saw her, similar to what I'd felt when I saw Kurama for the first time. She had been incredibly close to Chichiro, I knew immediately, but I only offered her a smile, unsure of how to respond, and then looked to the stage and to Hiei.

Predictably enough, I didn't recognize the song. Nor did I understand the words, even though I did understand Japanese automatically. I guess Hiei didn't feel like translating it for me and had taken the ability for me to understand the language before he began singing. Well, whatever song it was, it was amazing, and made no less amazing by him being the one singing it. He had an incredible voice, as was shown better now than when he sang 'A Long December', and just seeing him singing was awesome enough for me.

"Wow," Yusuke commented, a delighted look on his face, "I can't believe he chose a Gackt song."

I blinked over at Yusuke, making a note to myself to look up 'Gackt' when I returned to America and to see if I could find the song online. "What's it called?" I asked the detective, deciding to be lenient about ignoring him for now.

"Mind forest," he told me, his eyes never leaving the platform. "Damn, he can sing well. That's surprising."

I found that I couldn't hold back a grin at Yusuke's comment, though I wasn't sure why, and I looked back to watch Hiei finish.

When he did, he walked back to the table while Yusuke and half of our group whooped rather loudly. The fire demon ignored them and sat in the chair next to me, seeming pissed and relieved at the same time. Pissed off, I assume, because Yusuke had made him do that, and relieved because it was over with and because Yusuke could no longer call me Hiei's 'demon girl'. I felt the same way about the nickname, but I had to admit that I wished Hiei would go back up and sing again. I knew there wasn't a flippin' chance in hell that would happen, so I didn't bother hoping, but it was a nice thought all the same.

Now that Hiei's performance was over with, I was able to look back to Tamiko. She met my gaze, and I realized that her eyes had been on me before I glanced at her, and I shifted uncomfortably under her stare. Her eyes were unblinking, so it only seemed fitting to call it a 'stare' even though I doubt that was what she had intended upon doing.

"So," I offered the conversation sheepishly when the rest of the table began chatting loud enough so that my words would be drowned out to everyone but her and possibly Hiei, "I'm late, huh? Sorry about that."

She grinned brightly at me. I realized when the smile once again didn't reflect in her eyes that I'd have to get used to the fact that shadowcats' eyes were always expressionless, and that their countenances told their true moods. Spike's eyes had been like that, yes, but I had also seen his cat form and his forehead mark, and it had been easier to see him as a non-human by his dress. Tamiko was wearing a white zip-up sweater with a hood that was cast over her back behind the curled ends of her hair (Which struck me as odd, since the rest of her hair was slicked down against her head like she had gel in it.), a dark gray shirt beneath it, and jeans. As far as shadowcats went, I hadn't seen any before her dressed in such a human manner. I'd seen demons dressed similarly, yes, but not her species.

"No worries," she told me. "I picked up long ago that your perception of time was horrid, so this doesn't surprise me."

"Dying does that to you," I found myself respond, though it had been said in a completely casual way and I hadn't really planned on saying it.

She seemed to find morbid humor in it, though, and chuckled softly before turning to face the table and pay attention to the louder, main conversation.

I spent most of the night with her, rather than with Hiei. Most of the time, actually, I spent leaned comfortably against her while she spoke, and I'd never felt more content lounging with someone in such close quarters, and that might have even included when being compared to Hiei. It wasn't awkward, wasn't strange, and it seemed very natural to me, like a memory that I could not clearly see but instead felt.

"Amazing," she said at one point, drawing a strand of hair from my face in a mother-like gesture, and yet somehow making it seem like a sisterly kind. "All those years, you took care of me, and now I feel like the tables have turned."

"Yup," I agreed, undisguised humor in my voice, "after all, it's an extremely dangerous job to take care of someone in a karaoke bar, isn't it?"

"Oh, very," she confirmed, and I could hear in the way her words formed that she was smiling.

* * *

I groaned. "I'm so full," I complained, laying back but extending my arm and picking up another piece of sushi between my chopsticks.

Hiei rolled his eyes. "Christ, you're just like Chichiro."

I stuffed it in my mouth, savoring the flavor. If there was sushi left, I wouldn't stop eating until there wasn't. I was guessing that's what Hiei meant as being similar to Chichiro. "And that's a bad thing?"

As was to be expected, Hiei only 'hn'ed.

Someone had ordered sushi a while back, and I had decided to try actual Japanese sushi. I'd only ever had the stuff they sell in the cold food section at Wegman's supermarket, and I must admit that I was not disappointed in the least with what I was given. The octopus sushi, which I'd never had before, was a bit strange, though. The texture was like beef jerky, and how…recognizable the parts of it were kind of threw me off, since all meat and fish I had were generally just chunks of stuff that you could barely associate with animals. I ate it anyway.

When I finished, I found that I was becoming tired. We'd been at the bar a few hours by then, and though I wasn't sure why, I was already feeling weary.

And then, spontaneously, I heard a familiar, less-than-welcome voice in my mind hiss, _Let me out._ Though I had heard her speak to me not too many weeks ago (But I guess 'speak' wasn't the best word to describe it. Perhaps 'taunt' would be better.), I still wasn't expecting Chichiro's desire to take control of my body. Nor was I ready for how strong she proved to be when her mind shoved against mine, and the mini battle over control was short lived and she won rather easily.

I watched from spiritual form as my body stood, and though most everyone else didn't really notice, Hiei and Tamiko watched Chichiro leave. Tamiko settled back into a more comfortable position and didn't seem to think much of it, but Hiei's eyes lingered on the door after I disappeared through it, and then he stood and went to follow. I raised my eyebrows at that, but I was in no position to comment aloud to anyone but Chichiro, so I simply went after him and Chichiro in silence.

Moving in spiritual form, I feel the need to explain, was like having an invisible transporter. I only had to think of a location before I was there, and I didn't have to concentrate on it at all. As long as my body was nearby, I was able to get fairly much anywhere in the surrounding area within a second or two. I had never tested leaving the area my body was in, but something held me back—a certain foreboding wariness. I felt no possibly masochistic drive to discover exactly why I felt that way, and thus I always stuck by Chichiro (Or Aletta, depending.).

I reappeared from my place inside beside Chichiro, and I floated off to the side to watch them.

"Ketsue?" Hiei ventured when Chichiro remained unmoving, turned away from him in silence.

Her eyes were focused on the sky, and she finally responded, "There are no stars here. You can see nothing in the sky."

He looked queerly at her, and then spoke again. "That's to be expected from a city. Surely you know that from living near—what is your city called?—Rochester?"

Chichiro only made a 'Mmm' noise, and then turned to face him. Her eyes were blank as they often were, though if one looked close enough, her general rage brimmed within them as well.

Hiei studied her for a long moment, and then asked, "What's wrong? You're acting strangely." He smirked, though I could see that it was faked. It was questionable if I would have known that when I was still in my own body, but from my spiritual form, I could tell it easily. "More so than usual, I should say."

My yami offered him a small smile, then stepped toward him. To my horror, Chichiro reached my hand up and set it on the side of Hiei's face, closing her eyes and leaning forward, pressing their lips together. Hiei stared wide-eyed at my body for a moment before Chichiro pulled back, and then he reached up and gripped her hand on the side of his cheek and slowly removed it from his face—it was as if he were still too stunned to really react normally. "Ketsue, what are you—?"

"'Ketsue'?" Chichiro interrupted, letting out a low, mocking laughter. "Come, now, can't you recognize me, Hiei? I'm not your half-human girl."

He still hadn't released my hand, and Chichiro slowly twisted it around in his hold to slide her fingers along his. "…Chichiro?"

Her grin widened, and for a moment I saw something in her eyes flicker—was it…happiness? "The one and only," she purred back. "I had thought you would be able to tell the difference much easier, but I suppose I gave you too much credit."

I thought at first that Hiei was going to smile back, but he only lowered his arm and said, "Where is Ketsue, then? Where are you keeping her consciousness while you are in control?"

Chichiro feigned an offended face. I'm not sure if anyone but me—as I could obviously easily recognize false expressions from my other half—could have known it was fake. "Why does it matter?"

Hiei's eyes and countenance were unwavering, and he didn't answer.

My yami sighed once, submitting to finally answering. "She should be in a spiritual form somewhere around here."

He blinked once, in a cute way of showing mild confusion. "You can both be aware of surroundings at the same time?"

"As long as one of us is in spiritual form, yes." She smiled again, draping her arm over his shoulder and sliding closer to him. "Come, love, why does this conversation matter? You have me back—doesn't that mean anything to you?"

Hiei's response stunned me—I had expected him to be ecstatic at speaking to my yami, but instead he simply said, "I've had you back through Ketsue for several weeks, now. This is only another side of you—there isn't really a difference."

I'm sure I wore the same expression as her—she looked dumbfounded. Quick as always to regain her cool, within seconds she looked away from his eyes and leaned onto his shoulder with a second small sigh. "Yes, but if I were 'Ketsue' you would not allow this kind of contact, am I correct? You don't see her that way." I could tell she was enjoying rubbing that in my face, and on top of her hanging over Hiei like that, I found myself growing extremely angry with her.

"Hn. The Chichiro I knew wouldn't use this kind of 'contact' after not seeing me for over ten years," Hiei muttered softly, not looking at her. "Her reaction would be quite different."

Chichiro only chuckled. "And still, you refuse to push me away." I realized what she said was true—he wasn't fighting this at all. She finally leaned off him directly after that realization, and then she said, "Perhaps it is because I remind you of her so much more than my hikari?"

Hiei looked sideways, the direction away from her, and didn't reply.

Chichiro only smirked, her eyes narrowing, and then closed her eyes and let her expression go blank. I felt myself drawn back into my own body already, and when I opened my physical eyes, I was leaned against Hiei again, his chest against my back. Blinking a few times, I leaned off and avoided looking at him. I could feel his eyes on me, now, as if he could easily tell the difference now between Chichiro and I and now that we had switched once again. Though I wasn't sure why, I mumbled, "Sorry."

He only offered me a 'hn' in response.

It felt like in any other instance that this would have been one of the times when I randomly decided to hug him, but I didn't bother even considering the idea past the fact that I would have liked to. I doubted Hiei would have liked any further physical contact from my body, whether when I was in control or when Chichiro was in control.

The way Chichiro had acted, and the way he responded…was Chichiro really the Chichiro of my past life, or was she just a yami? I hadn't really thought of the second before now, but it seemed fathomable by Hiei's words and reaction, and what Chichiro had said.

Just as I was about to turn to Hiei again and finally face looking at him, I felt a familiar surge of spiritual pain in my chest. Immediately, I looked to Hiei and ignored the fact that I previously hadn't been able to, but before I could open my mouth to comment, he said, "I know, I sense it too."

Without saying anything to the group inside, we ran back into the nearest deserted street, and there he picked me up and sprang onto the closest rooftop, heading back toward the rift-tear we'd used to get here.

"Do you know where it is?" Hiei asked me as he was running, and I knew he meant the rift that we'd both sensed opening.

"Near my house," I responded, not sure how I knew that and also not sure why Hiei didn't. "Not really close. In Rochester—the city."

"Directly over the city?" he queried, not sounding enthusiastic about the idea. He was probably thinking of the same thing I was—the battle in the city when I saw an entity for the first time. The massacre.

"I'm not sure," I told him honestly. "But hurry, chances are it _is_ right over the city."

We arrived on the building top faster than I thought we would have, and with a single spring, Hiei went through and I found myself in the small, broken-down building again. But we weren't in there for long, and within seconds I could have sworn that at least another mile had passed beneath Hiei's feet. He was definitely faster then than I had seen him be in quite a while, but then again, we hadn't really had to hurry to anything in a while, either, save for during fights in the Tournament. I was reminded then again just how lenient he was in fights against me, no matter what he said about fighting honestly. If he used this much of his speed during spars, he would win every time within seconds and without a true fight from me.

It took us only seven or eight minutes (At most ten) to arrive in Rochester. I had not been given time to begin the rift-closing incantation on the way, since I hadn't really been able to tell when we were nearing it, but as soon as he let me down on the top of a quite random building, I began chanting (or rather mouthing) the words silently. With simply a look, I told Hiei to go and begin fighting what he could, and he disappeared from view. I would have joined him even as I was doing the spell, but I doubted I'd be of too much use when I was preoccupied with the incantation and injury.

* * *

We met up about a half hour after the rift closed. I had gotten down from the building in a few leaps, not seeing the sense of using stairs or elevators within a building I wasn't familiar with, and had begun to kill the lingering demons and Escque I saw wandering around.

So far, I'd seen no human casualties, and there had been quickly-decaying Escque bodies littered around wherever I looked. It was actually a welcome sight to see the corpses (and not moving), and I wondered if months back I would have gagged, had I been presented with this many of the dead soldiers. One in my shower had been creepy, but hundreds of dead ones scattered about was almost repulsive to me even now.

By his expression, Hiei didn't really share the thought with me. He relished killing, I had picked up from the few months I'd been with him, whether it was 'prettier' demons or decaying corpses that by all logic shouldn't have moved anyway.

The brunt of the attack had been killed off before any damage had been done, but there were still probably three hundred or so of the stragglers that were spreading out. We spent about an hour killing maybe half of them before my sensing abilities began to lag when there weren't as many targets to find. Thus, our tracking became more casual, more because it was forced than because we wanted to, and I allowed my tired body to walk rather than run about chasing the Escque.

I shot an energy ball at an Escque without even turning to it as I walked by, my shoulders a bit hunched. "I'm beat," I mumbled.

"Hopefully not overly so," was the response I received. "By the looks of it, we may still have to be out here for another hour."

"Well, then let's hurry it up and make it less than an hour. I fucking want to sleep."

I felt his gaze sweep over me, and I could easily see into his mind without a jagan—he was wondering how I was holding up with my wound. It was taking much longer to heal than any other before, excluding my shoulder and right arm, and it had been the most serious I'd ever had. Hopefully the most serious I'd _ever_ have.

I heard voices at the end of an alley nearby, and I let out a low groan of annoyance; Hiei caught onto the gesture even though I had muffled it, and as he scanned the area I knew he had heard them too, now. "Humans?" I asked.

"What else would be so…obnoxious?"

"And loud," I added in a mutter. "Though I guess there isn't much of a difference."

The voices were rapidly coming closer, and I straightened as another pack of Escque appeared; I shot energy out at them, as well, acting as though they were target practice and trying to aim for specific points on their bodies. As the last Escque fell, headless, a single human rounded the corner. He was grinning backward, but as his eyes shifted toward me and Hiei he slowed and stopped. The three behind him stopped their annoying laughing, which I had heard before they came into sight as well, and then they all dropped their cheery demeanors at once. "Hey," one of the three in the back said, reaching back and grasping what looked like the butt of a gun, "isn't that--?" One of the two next to him smacked his arm and he silenced himself and released whatever he'd held.

They stared at us for a good thirty seconds without moving before I became annoyed enough to speak. "Don't you fuckbags have some children to molest or something?" I muttered unenthusiastically. In response, they only shuddered like Italian greyhounds, their eyes wide, then turned tail and ran. I blinked, mumbling, "Well, that was weird."

"'Fuckbags'?" Hiei quoted. "'Children to molest'?"

I shrugged. "I was feeling creative. Now shut up before I tell you to suck a railroad spike."

"…Right."

I didn't bother tracking the humans with my spiritual sense to see where they'd run off to, and I focused my energy again on finding the Escque wandering about attempting to murder humans. Twenty minutes passed with Hiei and I traveling in silence before I finally decided to mention what had happened with the humans. "What was that back there? They seemed terrified out of their minds."

"Didn't you tell me to shut up?" the fire demon asked me. "Or did I hear you wrong?"

"Did I hear _you_ wrong? Since when do you listen to me?"

"…Hn." As if neither of us had said anything after my question, he spoke again. "Red eyes can do that to people," Hiei muttered, though I could tell he was joking.

"Hmmph," I mumbled.

When I sensed another human in the area, I recalled briefly the humans we'd seen earlier, who had somehow seemed to recognize us. Then I remembered the human I'd killed, and how his fear had driven him to take a shot at me, and when the two pieced together, I decided it wasn't a good idea for Hiei or I to face any more humans that night. I was too tired to really care if the human saw me, since I did look rather human most of the time anyway, but Hiei on the other hand…The red eyes and weird-but-awesome hair? Not so human-seeming. "Hiei, you'd better go. I can sense a human coming."

"Go and leave you? Hn. That doesn't seem to make sense in my mind. After all, I'm not the only demon here."

I glared over at him with a flat don't-argue-with-me look. "Oh, shut up. I know. But I can actually pass off as a human."

"And you don't think I can?"

"Hiei, a _flea_ could sense your demon energy." _Just look at how those humans reacted earlier,_ I thought, though something in the back of my mind was sounding a warning bell and telling me that their reaction had been toward myself and not Hiei.

"Well, fleas have been known to be vastly more intelligent than humans," he defended himself without much seriousness. I sighed heavily, but he continued before I could try and speak. "Just drop it, Ketsue. If you don't want to have to kill another human, I suggest we both stay here. That way, _I_ can kill it if the need arises."

"Oh, gee, that makes me feel better."

"Hn."

Something else tapped at my senses, and I growled to myself. "Agh, damn! More Escque." I rolled my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose, then watched Hiei turn to glare at the walking corpses. _They're endless,_ I thought, my mind-tone a mutter matching what my voice would have been had I chosen to say it aloud. _I'm never gonna get sleep at this rate…_

"I'm really beginning to get sick of them," Hiei growled without enthusiasm, taking a slash at one as it dove for him so slowly compared to his speed that I nearly felt pity for it.

"You're not alone," I mumbled back. "Hopefully it's only the Escque, though, and no more demons."

"I'd be more concerned over entities or upper class demons myself."

"By 'demons' I didn't mean only the weak ones," I grumbled flatly.

"Yes you did," he corrected. "I can read your mind."

"…Shut up."

Hiei smirked at me. "You seem to like that phrase a lot, lately."

"You should talk. You just told Yusuke to shut up not two weeks ago."

Hiei unsheathed his sword and slashed through an Escque, never looking at it or breaking eye contact with me. "Using it one time does not count as liking it a lot. And two weeks is not lately, either."

I snorted, summoning an energy sword, and I cut through a group of Escque, bored. "These Escque are simple to kill, but damn are they persistent." I slashed three, which had unknowingly conveniently lined themselves up within weapon range before me, in half at once. "You think they have brains," I asked Hiei, "or do you think they've already rotted?"

"Maybe they have them. I doubt they use them."

Then, quite randomly, someone who certainly wasn't Hiei snarled venomously, "You!"

I turned to the source of the new voice and groaned. "Ningen." I muttered. "Great."

"Watch yourself, Ketsue. He looks about the same as the human you killed."

At 'the human you killed', the new male human who had appeared before me from the road widened his eyes, then gritted his teeth. His face looked amusingly like a rabid bear, only not even close to as pretty when he snarled. "You're that…that bitch who killed Rex, aren't you?"

I hadn't been looking at the human, but as he spoke my gaze lifted to glare at him. "Hn. I don't know who this 'Rex' person is. Terribly sorry." Of course, the 'Terribly sorry' was meant as a sarcastic comment, but nonetheless I felt wary. It was true that I honestly _didn't_ know 'Rex', and I never had known anyone with that name, but this man certainly knew me, and I clearly wasn't his best friend.

I realized, then, as I repeated those words that it was what I had seen in my vision quite a ways back. The second vision in which it could be interpreted that Hiei could try to kill me, as he had drawn his sword in it while holding me. Ignoring the human for only a moment, I turned around. "Hiei, I really don't think we should be h—" There was a sound much like a firecracker going off, amplified by its echo on the alley walls, and for a moment I felt nothing. A long moment, in which time my mind cleared of all thought save for the echo and the fact that some force had shoved me forward toward Hiei. And then I was struck by a horrific pain on my torso, starting on my abs and wrapping around to my back. I was aware my legs were sliding from beneath me, and I was unable to even form a sound as the ground rushed up to meet me.

For a few seconds, I couldn't even open my eyes from my continuous wince, and then when I finally did, I found myself being steadied into a half-sitting position. Although my thoughts weren't very collected, I knew somehow that the human was dead—probably just because I couldn't sense his life energy anymore. I was hardly able to make the connection that Hiei had killed him then, but I easily would later on.

"What happened?" I whispered hoarsely, feeling my legs moving against my will as I was unable to stop myself from almost writhing at how much agony was rushing through my abdomen. Every nerve screamed, and it felt as though there was something shooting through my veins…something foreign, and much like a flame. As I tried to move to find the source of pain with my hand, even a twitch of my arm sent a shockwave of agony through my body. It was insane, different from anything I'd ever felt before. The anguish was horrid. "Oh my God," I moaned weakly, unable to manage to silence myself against protesting the pain.

"You've been shot." I couldn't even look at Hiei as he spoke, but there was a strange worry in his voice, almost pity.

"Why?" I croaked, then whimpered at the pain of speaking. "I didn't…Why do these humans keep doing this?" I had stopped using my voice and just spoke in ragged whispers. _I didn't do anything to him. I didn't do anything to merit attack from the human I was forced to kill. What the hell is wrong with these people?_

"I have to get the bullet out—the lead will poison your veins faster than it would a human. It is too impure a substance."

"It hurts," I gasped, my voice quiet and pained, almost childish. I didn't even care what happened then, I just wanted to die and relieve myself of the anguish on my torso. The pain was too great, and the poison Hiei had mentioned I could feel sliding through my bloodstream and infecting my body like a werewolf reacting to silver. I doubted that this was a normal human's reaction to a bullet, and I probably would have been amused by the thought that the werewolf comparison may have been almost reasonable had I not been so distracted by my agony.

Hiei was kneeling next to me, and I heard his sword sliding from its sheath. "Please don't," I whispered, and right then I was barely able to feel relieved that I had misinterpreted the dream completely in why Hiei had drawn his sword.

"You'll die if I don't. I have to."

"Make the pain stop…please," I hissed in a rattling breath. It took those words for me to note that my voice sounded almost like I was dying. Maybe I was. I just wanted the pain to stop, whatever the cost. Well, whatever the cost minus Hiei having to feel it. He often took severe pain from me if I could not handle it, but this time it was something I didn't want him to have to feel. Not that I had wanted him to feel any of the other pains he'd relieved me of, but this was different. Not something I could slack about, and thus I didn't allow him to take the pain. I wasn't sure if he had tried, but I put a specific energy around my body to make him unable to.

In all seriousness, the sensation of pain was so unbearable that I almost considered telling Hiei not to bother getting the bullet out and to simply kill me.

"Brace yourself," I heard him say, but he sounded so far off I didn't bother to try and respond. Then I felt his sword cut into my abdomen, not deep, but it made me try and scream—try because I was unable to make any noise, and my mouth just opened in a soundless display of my pain. And then I felt energy briefly ripple on the inside of my wound, and then it was gone, as well as the bullet. Though the injury was deeper and larger than before because Hiei had to open it enough to get the bullet out, I immediately felt relieved of whatever had made the pain so different. It was no longer infecting my body. Still, this was the first wound in a long time that had been able to make me cry. Not just make my eyes water, but actually cry.

Weariness swept over me immediately. And then I was in Hiei's arms again, and I pressed myself on to him and trembled, and I felt Hiei rest his hand behind my head and draw me to him, as if he was trying to protect me from something.

I didn't even know we had begun moving, but within seconds I was in my bed. I knew I had passed out, but I was too out of it because of the pain to really care, and I opened my eyes, which felt stiff from dry tear streaks. I wished more than ever that Hiei would stay inside then, like he had the night I killed the human—or, I suppose, Rex—but I dared not try to speak. Even if I had wanted to attempt, I doubt I would have been willing to say that to him.

But then, surprisingly, I sensed Hiei sit down behind me, and I tried to turn to him, but it required movement and the pain had not simmered down. He didn't move for a long while, and I was finally feeling myself falling away from consciousness. I didn't think it would be possible to sleep with such pain, but I was rapidly finding myself to be more tired and farther from reality. My sight was flickering in and out, like a failing light bulb.

And suddenly I felt Hiei curl himself around me—tentatively at first, almost as if he wasn't sure I'd let him, but I was too stunned to protest or welcome it. He didn't wrap his arms around me, I suppose for fear of touching my wound, but I could feel his breath against my neck, and it thrilled me in such a way I almost forgot the pain. I suddenly felt like mirroring Chichiro's act and kissing him, but I wasn't about to try and move, and again, I doubt I would have been willing to try even with the strength to. Still shivering from the ache on my torso and throughout my body, I faded into sleep only seconds after.

* * *

1—An extremely popular Japanese gambling game. Gambling is illegal in Japan.

2—Poisonous globefish. And yes, you actually eat it. Several people die each year from ill-prepared fugu, though I'm not really sure how many.

**Authoress's Note:** '_Shot through the heart, and you're too late; You give love a bad name_…' Meh. Now I have that song stuck in my head…Anywho, there you have it. The 'you killed Rex'-dude part, finally. You have _no_ idea how hard it was waiting even this long to add it in. But, as you can see, Hiei'n Ketsue are finally showing more affection than Ketsue's random hugs, and that's why I wanted to wait so long for this scene. Also, happy second birthday, Tears of the Sun.


	32. Foresight

**Authoress's Note:** Maaaan, it feels like it's been a lifetime since I updated this. Gotta be a few months, eh? Anyway, the reason this took so long is A) I'm lazy, B) I've been working like mad on rewriting Voices of the Lost Realm, though I'm still only eight chapters into the first book, and C) I stopped halfway through this chapter, scrapped the second half of what I had and decided to save that for later. What happens at the end of this chapter is long overdue, and if I had stuck to my original timing plan for this fanfiction, it would have happened long before this.

**Disclaimer:** Neither Hiei or YuYu Hakusho are mine.

**Claimer:** Chichiro and Ketsue are mine, Kaze is BritKit, Aria is FoxWitch. While not all the characters are mine, all writing, storylines and concepts in this fanfiction (Save any YYH references) are (This includes Nirvana, Spike, all shadowcats, the shadowcat species, Escque, Mahdaegrahs/entities, scorpios etcetera.).

* * *

"What's happening to her, Kurama?" His voice was demanding and concerned at the same time, almost accusatory toward Kurama, but I think that was just because he had no where else to put the blame.

I heard the fox's voice respond, "You recall Aletta, one of the spirits in her body?"

"The wolf, right? That Ketsue believes to be a demon." It took until I heard my name said for me to recognize Hiei's voice. He spoke my name in a different manner than anyone else, so I could recognize his tone even when I was as out of it as I happened to be then. "She's definitely something different…I'd say a Karn. But what does that have to do with anything? I was talking about Ketsue, not her wolf half-yami."

"If you know that she's a Karn, you must know that the legend of the werewolf species being allergic to silver began with the Karn's inability to come into contact with certain metals."

"Are you inferring this is Aletta's fault?"

"Not her fault, no, but I believe Ketsue's body is reacting to the bullet the same way a Karn's body would because of Aletta."

"Then this is her fault," Hiei insisted flatly.

I heard Kurama sigh. "If it makes you feel better to blame her, be my guest."

Hiei was silent for only a moment before he said, "I can't stand not being able to help her. This is out of my league."

"You can't help everything, Hiei," Kurama replied quietly, as if this was news to the fire demon near him.

"I know that. And I generally tend not to care, but not when it involves Ketsue."

I felt my face wince automatically, against my power, as a short wave of pain infected my stomach again. Hiei swore in demon, a word I didn't recognize save the fact it was a profanity, then he hissed, "It's bleeding through again. Why won't it stop bleeding?"

"I guess it's just another side effect of the fact that she's allergic to this metal."

Hiei's aura flared up in what I assume was anger or annoyance, and I'm guessing he glared at Kurama. "Why are you so calm? The last time she was wounded before the tournament, you were the one acting like a sentimental fool."

"And the last time you told me to stop, because I barely knew her. And that's true, so why do you want me to care so much now?"

Hiei offered no response. I had thought they figured it wouldn't stop bleeding and not to waste any more bandages, but I sensed Hiei's energy closer and felt the bandages being cut off from around my abdomen. I was lifted into what seemed like a bad attempt to mimic a sitting position, far enough so that the bandages could be replaced, and new ones were applied to cover my wound.

"I haven't seen you care for someone like this in years," Kurama commented as I was gently lowered down onto my back once more. I have to tell you, only being able to hear their conversation and not being able to say or do anything was really starting to piss me off.

"What's your point?"

It took Kurama a moment to reply, and when he did, it was not to answer the question, but rather to pose one of his own. "Do you love her, Hiei?"

Hiei's response took longer than Kurama's; when he finally spoke, I was given an answer I had actually expected, which hadn't happened in a while. "No." And then my expectations were proven only half-right when he continued, "But, unfortunately, I think I may be getting there. I care for her more than I'd like to admit."

To my surprise, Kurama started laughing. Quietly, and what sounded like he was holding back, but it seemed to take Hiei a minute to even speak; again, his aura seemed vexed with Kurama. "Do you find that funny?" Hiei snarled, belligerent.

"No, no." Kurama calmed himself. "It's just that I'm amazed you're actually admitting it to me."

"Why's that?"

"You rarely tell anyone anything. Not of this sort."

"…Hn."

It took a long while, but eventually Kurama's energy receded from my spiritual range, and immediately after I felt weariness once more creeping into my senses. I supposed that I had been so focused on the conversation that I hadn't really noted the hints of tiredness before it hit me so strongly.

I sensed Hiei move behind me, and then I felt his body curl around my own, and once more, the strangeness of it was drowned out by how desired the feeling was. "I'm not sure if you're conscious or not," he murmured, "but I know that you'll hear me anyway. You seem to always hear my voice." He was silent a moment, as though it was awkward for him to say this, and then he spoke again. "Some would think that you've had worse, but this is possibly the severest injury you've ever suffered. I know you'll bear it and heal, now that you've been able to handle it for so many days, but not long ago I hadn't been sure if you'd survive." It was honestly the oddest thing I'd ever heard, Hiei being so sentimental. His voice lacked nearly all emotion, which was only fitting for him, but his words alone were enough to show that this was one of those sentimental-moments. Again, he was silent, and this time it lasted for much longer. And then, simply, he mumbled resignedly, "I'm sorry," as if he could think of nothing else to satisfy what he felt, and then nothing further.

_...Sorry? For what?_ Perhaps he felt guilty for not being able to stop the human from shooting me…? But something felt wrong in thinking that, and I didn't bother attempting to puzzle over his oddities any farther than that. He was a difficult person to understand most of the time, and I bet that I could easily ruin my mind attempting to figure out that apology.

The pain on my torso was duller by then, but it was far from gone. I knew better than to try to move or attempt to commence conversation, and so I sat in silence with him probably believing that I was unconscious. I considered telepathy, but my thoughts had become weary and were not collected enough to do so; they were too focused on the pain and the weakness of my limbs to make any sense.

For a short time I flickered in and out of consciousness. I had underestimated the severity of the wound even through my pain, and with each passing day I realized that Hiei may have been right that this was probably worse than when Nirvana had stabbed me. I was aware sometimes that what I considered 'awake' was too surreal to be actual consciousness, and I had a hard time telling dreams from reality, so I waited quite a while before I honestly tried to move, sit up or speak. When I did finally consider trying, after about a day of time of me being conscious (Which, when adding on how long I was _un_conscious, could have been weeks), the first thing I thought of was what I had seen when Hiei's jagan first gave me my sight back during one of my initial blind flashes. Perhaps it was because of my partial blindness that I thought of if then, but I couldn't be sure of the cause of it.

I conjured the image back into my mind. Hiei and Chichiro, in a forest quite obviously not in the human world; Chichiro had been bleeding (And dying—minor technicality), and Hiei had been holding her. Their speech indicated that their perception of the situation and where the blame needed to be thrown were quite different; Hiei seemed to consider the situation his fault, whereas the dying fox demoness in his arms had thought it was her fault. It had been confusing to me. They had mentioned a child.

I know you may be thinking, 'Oh, I thought she'd forgotten that' or you may have forgotten yourself. But I hadn't forgotten, and the question of what I had seen had been eating away at me ever since the 'memory' had been shown to me. I just hadn't really planned on ever asking Hiei until then—even still, I needed to sort of…brace myself for it. I doubted it was his favorite subject.

I waited until I woke the next time to mention it. I had faith that I was awake and that it was not a dream; the pain was too real, and my surroundings were too realistic to be a dream. Hiei was nearby, I knew, but again, a blind flash had snatched away my sight and I could see little. I was aware only of the fact that I was not at my human-world house, and that I was feeling much better both pain-wise and mentally.

"You're awake," he noticed softly, and his tone surprised me: completely emotionless, of course, but almost relieved. I suppose it could have been considered understandable, but all the same I decided to ignore the undertone and figure that I had imagined it.

"Yeah." I struggled to see again, and then felt his jagan in my mind. It hurt, but not nearly as badly as the last time, and I was relieved enough at my vision clearing that I didn't mind it. The pain simmered down a bit the longer my eyes were focused, and then eventually the sensation of his presence in my head was gone. My sight was fuzzy, but it was my own, I knew. Not nearly as clear as it had been the minute or two his jagan was in my mind, though.

Silence fell for a while, and I took the time to figure out where we were. Makai, I had known as soon as my eyes focused the first time, but now I knew I had been here before. The very first time I had been stabbed, we had stopped here for the shortest time, though I didn't remember much of it, and when we left I had been bandaged even though I was confident Hiei hadn't left demon world to find the bandages. Which meant Hiei probably came here often, to this specific part of Makai. "Where are—?"

"Makai, which you know, and nothing else is important location-wise," Hiei responded flatly near immediately. "You wouldn't recognize the name, and you wouldn't find the information useful anyway."

I just made an 'Mm' noise, my eyes lifting to the sky. It was dreary here, but the sky was not reddish as it had been the last time we were here. It still looked angry, but it was more stormy-seeming without a true storm than anything. The twisted and malformed clouds were a welcome sight to my eyes.

_Time to ask him_. "What happened?"

"You don't remember?" he began, but I interrupted him.

"With Chichiro," I elaborated, not bothering specifying _what_ with Chichiro; he would know immediately, that much I was sure of.

He didn't speak for quite a long time. In that time, I pondered whether he was debating on how to kill me for that question, debating on whether or not to answer, or debating on _how_ to answer.

He eventually said simply, "I killed her."

I knew as much, and said nothing in return.

It took him a long moment to continue. When he did, he spoke with smooth difficulty: his voice was calm and clear, but I could hear that it was hard for him all the same. Like the night I first met Seera, when my voice was clear but terror clouded my mind. I knew Hiei was feeling a vastly different emotion than terror then, though. "It was the night after we killed Atenre and restored the ankh. Chichiro and I…At that point…" He drew in a breath and stopped, probably because he disliked stuttering, however minor. "She was pregnant," he finally said plainly. Switching subjects immediately, he began again, "Tamiko transformed every blood moon—" I knew somewhere that by 'every' he meant yearly, not the random several times per year that the blood moon showed. Once every year, Inuichi shadowcats lost control of their blood lust, and if they had not quenched it on the blood of a human or demon before then, they would attempt to that night, losing control of their body and intentions. It went away until the next year or until they killed a human or demon after the moon disappeared. "—and the only person able to be near her and remain unscathed was the one she loved the most. She thought that it was Chichiro, naturally; she had—_they_ had been best friends for hundreds of years, and she figured that their time apart had not changed it. And I don't think it would have, if she hadn't fallen in love with Kurama."

Something flickered in my mind, a conversation between Chichiro and Tamiko, and I mentally snatched at it and hoped I would not forget it immediately. _"Is he with anyone?" "Yes." "…Who?" "You, silly."_

"Chichiro forced me to leave, but she insisted on staying with Tamiko to make sure she didn't hurt anyone else or herself, though I never understood what she thought Tamiko would do to herself." He sighed once, his eyes flickering over to the trees again. "Chichiro was bitten by Tamiko. And, apparently, when that happens—on the blood moon only—the one bitten transforms." Knowing I'd think of it, he continued, "You'd be amazed where humans find inspiration for werewolf legends." He issued a low laugh, which was notably fake, and then stopped for a moment.

"Chichiro was like Tamiko," I offered, praying that he wouldn't mind that I put in my thoughts.

"Not entirely," he responded, "but close. She couldn't control her body, but if she bit someone, they would not transform. They'd be killed. She knew that when she came after me, and so she…she told me that she was not herself, despite the fact that she had her own scent still. Said it was a 'decoy' and that she wanted…to see the expression on my face."

Again, memory slid its way into my perception. _"How do you think I got her scent?"_

"Chichiro told you that she killed her," I realized. "I mean, herself. But that she was someone else." It made sense in my mind, but I stumbled over it when I said it aloud.

Hiei didn't mind. "I believed it. I thought 'Why would Chichiro lie?' and 'Why would she attack me?' And I also thought… 'I have to make this bastard pay.'"

I tried to give him a sympathetic look, but my eyes refused to meet his.

"And I did. And before she died, she transformed back. Tamiko…She said that the only way for the transformation to be withdrawn before dawn when Chichiro would revert anyway was for her to die. So as soon as she transformed back, there was no hope for her. It was like…" He paused, and then reiterated, "There was no hope. She had no chance, and it was like a red flag telling us that." He smirked sadly, his gaze now focused on the ground, though I doubted that was what his eyes were actually seeing. "She knew it, too."

Thinking of nothing to comfort him, I didn't try; thinking of nothing better to say, I asked, "What did you do?"

"I went back to the temple, pinned Tamiko against a wall, and told her that it was her fault that Chichiro was dead. In a few more words than that. And leaving out the word 'dead' because I couldn't say it yet."

I'd never felt such sadness; no, not sadness—pity. For Hiei, for Chichiro…But I also felt anger toward Chichiro. She had tricked him and made him _kill_ her so that she wouldn't have to deal with her transformation and control herself. She could have told him what happened and to run as far as he could, but instead she gave him grief and guilt beyond anything she would have felt if she'd just _protected_ him and not tricked him. In the same moment, I felt angry with myself for being angry with Chichiro, but only because I knew that Hiei would be if he knew it. Besides, it was easier to be angry with myself, and I could argue that I was Chichiro anyway and had the right.

"She didn't have to die! She could have just told you—"

"_Don't_." His voice was dangerous, and I couldn't remember ever having heard him use that tone with me, save for maybe a toned-down version back when he told me not to talk about what the Koorime had done to him.

I blinked once, then looked down, uncomfortable and unsure of if I should even say 'sorry' or not.

Apparently not caring to mention any of that conversation past that, Hiei saved me from the decision by asking, "How do you feel?"

"Honestly? Like crap." I smiled weakly at him, but dared not even snicker. It'd move my stomach, something which I was not willing to do then.

"Any better than you did feel?" he continued.

"Yeah, that's the only reason I can talk," I mumbled back. With every passing word, my voice was getting stronger, clearer and closer to my usual tone and volume. It just sounded like I was sick right now—soft and raspy and partially labored.

As if it had just occurred to him, Hiei said, "You're going to have to pretend very soon that you're fine. We have to go back to the human world."

"Why?"

Hiei could hear in my voice that I lacked enthusiasm for the idea, I'm sure. "The 'corgi picnic', whatever the hell that's for. Your parents plan on going with your dog, and there are far too many people who know you and expect you there for me to make them forget. Those who don't go may ask if you were there, as well. And Kaze, as well as her parents, perhaps siblings and friends, were told that she had been invited some time back."

The Corgi Picnic. My dog was a Pembroke Welsh Corgi, a short-stature, long-body breed; they were much larger than dachshunds, if that comes to mind, and their bodies were like that of small German Shepherds mixed with foxes with short legs; most weighed around twenty-five to thirty pounds. The lacked tails. Every summer, near the end of August or in early September, the Corgi Picnic was held in 'celebration' and honor of the species, and hundreds of corgis, corgi breeders, owners and fanatics came. There were games, prizes, contests, agility, and plenty of walking space at the picnic, and generally I was ecstatic to go. Not this year.

I didn't bother mentioning that. I was more surprised that it was that late into August.

"How long had it been since…the human?" For some reason, saying 'since I was shot' felt awkward to me, and it would not have come easily off my tongue. Saying 'the human' was easier, and I was sure Hiei would know what I meant.

"A week or so," he responded, and then the cold-blooded killer actually yawned. I'd never seen him do that, and it struck me as funny and cute in the same, and I had to try very hard to stifle my laughing, though I didn't succeed for a few seconds and by the end of it my torso burned.

Ignoring the strange look he gave me, I finally made the attempt to lift my torso into a sitting position. I was more astounded by the weakness of my limbs than the lingering ferocity of the pain on my stomach, but regardless, both of those things made me realize that moving would be stupid for quite some time yet.

Hiei seconded the thought as he grumbled, "Why are you so insistent on trying to move? Let your body heal for once without hindering it, God damn it."

I grinned weakly over at him. "Sorry, sorry," I mumbled, closing my eyes. I felt nauseous again, and I was forced to open my eyes again just to calm the feeling that the ground was spinning. At least my sight didn't betray me, and I stared upward at the angry, now red and gray clouds above me, resisting the urge to sigh from boredom.

* * *

Two days later and I was back in my room in the human world, bed-ridden as had become the usual.

To me, the trip back had almost been too painful to be worth withholding my human life. It had felt much too long, and I could barely concentrate on Hiei telling me once and a while to bear with it and how much longer it'd take to get home, try as I might to focus solely on his voice. I could tell easily enough now that the threat on my life from the wound was pretty much gone, aside from the risk of infection, but I was no where near being relieved of the pain all the same.

Staring at my ceiling, I realized spontaneously that my shoulder didn't hurt. At first I considered that perhaps I was concentrating too hard on my abdomen, but upon thinking only of my shoulder, I confirmed that there was no sensation of pain. _Damn it,_ I thought with only mild true anger, _he disengaged the Ofuda again_. It wouldn't last. I had already figured out that he couldn't keep it disengaged for too long now without expelling a large amount of energy, energy which he needed to fight. And, as my mind saw it and I'm sure as he figured as well, if he didn't have energy to fight, he wouldn't fight as well; if he didn't fight as well, he may get injured easier and more often; if he was injured, he may not have had the power to disengage the Ofuda anyway, causing me to be much more injured than simply having a few of his older wounds. Thus, it would make sense not to disengage it often (or at all, my mind argued), but I reasoned that he was only doing so now because I was already in enough pain.

Even still, I decided to begin screwing around with the Ofuda and testing out if I could disengage it like he often did and increase its power at will. Increasing its power drained me quite a bit, so I learned after several minutes of trying to do so; even with all that effort, I only felt the smallest buzz of pain on my shoulder. Just how much energy was he expelling to make sure I didn't activate the Ofuda again? And just how much energy did he have to expel?

For whatever reason, now that I was focusing on it so much, when my concentration dropped, so did the power of the Ofuda; it somehow began to reverse. The pain on my torso began to fade. It actually made Hiei wake up.

"Oww, Ketsue," he growled almost casually, opening his eyes and looking over at me. It seemed automatic to him to know that it was my fault. "What the hell are you doing?" His eyes dropped to his stomach, though my wound was not bleeding and I hoped his version of it wasn't, either. I couldn't see through the cloak, though, so I couldn't be sure.

"Sorry!" I cried quickly, immediately forcing more energy from my body using my hand, pressing it against the Ofuda in hopes of giving it more power and taking my own wound back.

I was surprised to feel Hiei's energy closer to me a second later and his hand lifted mine from the Ofuda. "Don't bother, it doesn't hurt that much. Your power will return soon enough, but for now let it slide. The Ofuda's power has stabilized again."

I raised my eyebrow at his skeptically. "Right." I guess 'stabilized' meant that its power would not increase or decrease any longer depending on how much concentration I had on it. "And you know that I was screwing with the power how, exactly?"

He put two fingers briefly on his stomach and then showed them to me; they were damp with blood. "Three guesses," he responded sarcastically.

Though no pain was revealed in his tone, I immediately went through a semi-long string of profanities and my hand shot back to the Ofuda persistently.

And, predictably, it was instantly lifted by Hiei again. "I _said_ don't bother."

There was command in his voice and I stopped at once. All the same… "But you're feeling my wound! That's not fair to you! This is my fault and—"

"If you feel that way about the fairness of taking pain and wounds from someone else," he grumbled, "then perhaps you should apply that to yourself and realize that's quite similar to how I feel every time you feel one of my wounds that are my own fault." Hiei sighed and his form flickered, reappearing outside on the tree branch. His tone was lowered and more casual as he continued. "Let it slide. I don't have your wound, just a part of it."

He was right—I did still feel the majority of the pain, it had just been slackened the slightest bit. But I couldn't help but feel awkward at what he had said before he explained that—did it really bother him that I felt his wounds when he wasn't able to disengage the Ofuda? I guess I had stopped thinking about it not long after I made it. But, obediently, I dropped the conversation and bit back my point that I had meant that him feeling my wound was my fault, not the wound itself.

After a short while of silence, I looked out my window to him. "So, uhm, when's the Corgi Picnic again?"

"Tomorrow."

I blinked at him in silence for a moment. "…Tomorrow," I repeated after a long moment. "Eh heh, _great_."

He sighed heavily, not looking at me, and muttered, "Will you just go to sleep already or something?"

My answer was glowering at him in silence for a few minutes before I found that I actually was tired and did need to sleep again, soon. So I listened to him, closed my eyes, and was out in seconds.

* * *

Hugging Kaze the next morning proved to be quite like torture. True, I was incredibly happy to see her again, even if thanks to my wound and fighting and such it had been a few weeks, but the embrace put pressure on my wound. I could barely restrain making a noise of pain, and I was glad that no one was in front of me to see the wince that I could not avoid.

Of course the entire day was spent with me avoiding as best I could the question of what I had been doing the past few weeks and acting casually human-like. I'm not sure why I never liked telling anyone in my human life what I did—I mentioned a few small details, but never defined how often I was with Hiei or the fighting or really much of anything outside the fact that Hiei existed and that Chichiro was my past life. Kaze was the most knowledgeable of my friends about the subject, I guess, because she knew what an Escque was, even if she didn't know the name.

I don't remember that day very well. To be honest, I don't remember a lot of things in this chapter or the next too well because they were human-world related and many of them lacked Hiei.

The main fragments I recall were walking with my corgi, Louie, alongside Kaze, working with him on agility and finding that he hated going up ramps and didn't understand going through tubes, and then settling down to watch the contests when it began to rain. And I remember the thunder.

It sounded as though the sky had torn open, like there was a rift opening in the mist of the thunder. I tried to enjoy my time with Kaze and made the attempt to ignore it, pretending I had imagined it. But she did have at least minor connection with the non-human realm, and her eyes lifted to the sky at the same time mine did. I couldn't ignore it—I could see from the corner of my eyes the black void left in the sky, and even if she couldn't see it, the puzzle of a non-human beside me could hear it. Worriedly examining the angry clouds, Kaze asked, "That isn't normal thunder, is it?"

"No," I said, shaking my head as I watched the rift tearing the sky open, "it isn't."

I felt useless, honestly. I knew I didn't stand a chance fighting, if walking and acting normally was bad enough. I stared at the rift for a short time longer, ignoring the rain and the contest in front of me, and then sighed once and looked back to Kaze before shifting my eyes to the fenced-in area where dogs ran back to their owners to grab a hot dog reward. I trusted Hiei to fight well enough for the both of us—he didn't always need my help, did he?

Whatever the case was, the day held no excitement to me any longer, however minor it had already been thanks to my injury. It seemed long and yet when I looked back on it during the drive back to my house, it felt as though it had gone by in a blur while I had stood to the side to watch.

Kaze slept over that night, and I found that as I watched her sleeping form, I began to feel tired as well. It was good to rest after using my body too much with my wound, and the mattress felt soft and warm; the sheets were crisp, and the paddle of rain on my roof provided a kind melody that lulled me into sleep…

…And yet my eyes shot open as soon as I heard the tapping sound. Only one person would be able to somehow take off my screen from the outside and knock on my window. Stepping over Kaze's sleeping form, I slid the frame up. "Hiei!" I said with a grin, even as the rain blew in and soaked my face. He hadn't come back before that from fighting whatever had come from the rift, and I had been worried even though I had not gained any wounds thanks to the Ofuda that hinted that he was injured.

His expressionless face revealed nothing, and it lacked matching relief to what I felt at seeing him. "We'd better take this to the roof, as not to wake you friend," he told me, flickering from sight.

I found a sturdy footing on the window sill and slid the window closed save a crack large enough to fit my fingers and leapt out, kicking off the trunk to the roof. During the day I had been conditioned well enough to the pain of my injury while my body was moving, so I could ignore it at least moderately well by now. That didn't change the fact that my limbs and entire body were worn down and weary. I didn't bother concentrating on the slick of the rain as I sat down on the roof, looking to Hiei. "What is it? Did something happen with the rift?"

"Atenre's back," he said milliseconds after I finished speaking.

I stared at him in silence. I hadn't heard that name used in present context in a long time, since back when Aria allowed Seera out to speak with Chichiro. "Atenre," I echoed. "How do you know?"

"No need to get into details now," I was surprised to hear Hiei respond. "You need sleep."

"But—"

"Don't. You _do_ need sleep and don't deny it. Since you seem to have issues sleeping when I'm not around, now you can."

"But why did you—?"

"Just keep it in mind," he replied before I could finish my question of why he had mentioned Atenre already if he wasn't going to elaborate.

I was quite randomly attacked with exhaustion, and I assumed without commenting on it that it was Hiei's fault. If I needed sleep, he had the ability to make me sleepy or knock me unconscious without laying so much as a finger on me, that much I knew from experience. I ignored it at least for the time being. "You could have waited until later to—"

"But I didn't, so it doesn't matter what I could have done."

Shifting my eyes sideways, I glared half-heartedly at Hiei for a moment, but his gaze was elsewhere and I didn't feel motivated to keep my eyes focused on him. Sitting down on the wet roof and shivering once at the coldness of the rain still pouring around me, I set my crossed arms on top of my knees and rested my chin on them. Closing my eyes, I mumbled, "School starts for me, soon."

"I know," was the response I received.

I sighed lightly, more from tiredness than anything. "Figures." After a short pause, I said, "Do you ever think about the future?"

"I'd be stupid not to," Hiei muttered back. "What kind of question is that?"

"I mean, what'll happen after the Escque invasion. I mean…what will you do then?" _What will I do then?_ I wondered, but didn't voice it.

Hiei gave a low snort. "The invasion is far from over." I felt his eyes rest on me, but unlike usual, they remained on me even when he spoke, guessing, "You're worried about what you'll do afterward?"

I looked up to meet his eyes, but only briefly, and then I stared at the wet branches of my guardian tree. How long had it been since I'd last spoken with her…? "Say that you leave afterward for Makai," I suggested finally, supposed to seem just like a speculation, after fighting with myself to actually say it. I honestly considered it a possibility for the future that he'd leave. And I didn't mean with me. "What'd I do then? I'd have to return to a human life, which means I should probably try and hold up what I have now." Figuring he would be wondering what brought this topic up, I continued, "Which means I should keep going to school like a normal human kid. And I'm starting high school this year." My eyes narrowed at nothing in particular, and I decided to blame the moisture in my eyes on the rain. I had no reason to be crying right then, whether I really was or whether I was imagining it. "And then I'd have to go to college. And get a job like a normal human adult."

I felt Hiei's boot nudge my back, and it struck me as a funny gesture coming from him, but I quieted to let him speak. "You really think I might leave, don't you?" he asked from behind me, and I could hear by his voice that he had leaned closer.

I grinned faintly even though he probably couldn't see the expression from where he was. "I guess so." Again, my eyes were watery. _Damn rain._

He didn't answer me, and I admit that I had sorely hoped he would offer some form of comfort, or at least mocking of the idea. Was he really considering leaving? Yeah, the idea had crossed my mind and on some nights I dwelled on the thought, but I guess his silence made me realize just how much of a possibility it was.

Eventually, I heard him utter a low, "Hn," and then sensed him sit down a short ways away from me on the roof.

I sat in silence with him until the rain cleared early the next morning, and then I headed inside just before Kaze began to stir.

* * *

Kaze didn't stay long that morning. Thanks to the fact that I'd only been able to slip in a small amount of sleep, I was barely conscious enough to go downstairs when her mother came to pick her up, standing looking dopy by the stairs to wave bye. I immediately went back upstairs and flopped down on my bed, closing my eyes and doing nothing even after I realized couldn't fall back asleep.

I opened my eyes from my mini-doze when Hiei spoke from outside my window. "It's your birthday, today," he told me monotonously.

I blinked, thinking for a moment. It wasn't even September yet. "Uh, no it isn't."

"Chichiro's birthday is August 27th," he explained.

"Oh," was all I could manage to say. So this was my real birthday? "My human body's birthday is in September," I said after a moment.

"The fourteenth," he confirmed, and I grinned.

"How the hell do you know these things?"

His jagan glowed briefly beneath his bandanna as he said, "I have my ways."

"Hmm," was my less-than-enthusiastic response. Stirring in my bed and forcing myself awake, I sat up and rubbed at my eyes before I looked out the dew-stained screen of my window and asked, "When's your birthday, anyway?" I'd never heard him mention it, not that the subject of birthdays was a normal, every-day conversation or anything.

He shrugged "I don't know."

"…You don't know?" I stared at him in disbelief. "How can you not know?"

His cool gaze swept over me. "How do you know what day you were born on?" Had I been more aware and less dazed from lack of sleep, I probably could have guessed where this was going. "You were told the date by your parents. I, on the other hand, never had a true family that _could_ tell me." I gave him a sympathetic look, but he either missed it or didn't care. "It's like with the slaves you've learned about in school. They grew up not knowing their birth date, but if they ever care, no one's left to tell them."

"Sorry," I mumbled softly.

He glanced at me briefly, then gave an indifferent 'hn'. "I don't care."

After a moment, "So then how do you know when you turn a year older?"

He shrugged lightly. "I just assume another year's gone by on New Years, and consider myself one year older."

Eager to divert the conversation, I jested cheerily, "So, what are you getting me for my birthday?"

He glared sideways at me in silence, then asked in all seriousness, "What do you want for it?"

I blinked once. I hadn't expected him to act as though I had meant the question. And yet as soon as he said it, all I could think of was when Chichiro had kissed Hiei and how I'd had the desire not long ago to mimic the action. _I know damn well what I want for my birthday, but there's no way in hell I'd ever tell you._ I felt my face burning at the thought. Sometimes I annoyed myself with how human I could be.

"You're blushing," Hiei muttered flatly. "Do I _want_ to know why?"

Glaring at him, my eyes automatically found his lips, and I dropped my gaze. "It's nothing. I'm not sure what I want."

He raised his eyebrows and regarded me skeptically, but said nothing further.

Now that I had forced upon myself to think back to my long-forgotten dreams of Hiei and I being a couple, I realized that I'd missed the feeling of Hiei sleeping behind me that morning even if he'd only done it a few times. And he'd probably just done it because it made me relax when I'd first gotten my wound. I sighed lightly, leaning forward and folding my body in half over my crossed legs, propping my chin on my hand. The position put much too much pressure on my wound, and thus I recoiled and laid back on my bed as soon as I felt pain. It wasn't as if I could just casually _ask_ him to spoon me again, and I figured that had been a two-or-three-time thing.

With a low sigh, I voiced my wandering thoughts and mumbled, "I'd miss you if you left."

I felt Hiei's eyes on me, and then I heard him chuckle after a moment. "You have a hard time focusing on anything for too long, don't you?"

"Meh," was all I offered in response. Then, as a spontaneous restless feeling awakened within me, I said, "Any rifts around?"

"I was wondering how long it'd be before you asked," he told me, seeming amused. I guess I was fairly predictable in that aspect. "No, though, there aren't any rifts near here."

"Time for a road trip?" I suggested, stretching and then standing; after my legs had carried me to the trunk beside my window, I leaned one leg onto it and propped my chin on my hands, held up by my elbows where they rested on the window sill.

Hiei lacked expression as usual when he said in a mutter, "You really think you're ready to be out fighting again?"

I quirked an eyebrow, glowering in silence for a moment before I grumbled, "Yes," flatly.

He shrugged. "Well, consider yourself warned. I doubt you'll be of much use fighting quite yet, but you can make the attempt if you wish."

Irritated, I growled, "Yes, I do _wish_ to fight. So let's get a move on, yeah?"

The battle was strangely uneventful. I actually had little problem defeating our opponents, though most of them were the fairly non-responsive and sluggish Escque that lacked weapons and a fighting style. Somewhere, I suspected that Hiei had purposefully brought us to that specific rift to be sure I wasn't injured further, but I decided against bringing it up.

Thanks to his dislike of changing many of my parents' memories for the time being, when my father returned from New Jersey for the week and wanted us to have a 'family night', the jaganshi informed me that my desire for fighting would have to wait some.

I was surprised at the lack of severe disappointment on my end; don't get me wrong, it was there, but it was much lesser an amount than I had anticipated. I supposed that after so long seeing solely Hiei (not that I was complaining, mind) and then returning to see my human friends, I did ache somewhat to regain the relationship with my family that I had been neglecting. After the Dark Tournament, when Hiei had asked me if I missed my family, I had told him that I chose him over them, at least for that time. None of that had changed, but with school fast approaching, I figured I should patch things up and enjoy the time I had with my humans. I certainly hadn't seen much of them lately.

* * *

I fell asleep late after staying up with my human family—Insomnia was a bitch. It didn't give me a break, either, when I was wounded. After all, I couldn't always pass out conveniently after battles and while I was healing; half of the time, I figured, Hiei made me lose consciousness anyway. I had to move to the trunk beside my window to fall asleep, having become so used to having Hiei closer than he was when I was in my bed.

The dreams that had haunted me when I had first begun to train with Hiei were returning, and not slow and steady. They were thrown upon me as I slumbered that night, bombarding me with flashes and hints of death and loss, though when I regained consciousness early into the morning, I could remember little more than the feeling of foreboding behind them.

"_HIEI!_" I woke shouting, continuing even as the dream slipped from memory, "_Don't!_"

"Don't what?" I heard him ask, and I surprised myself by spinning rapidly and actually _punching_ him.

I wasn't sure whether I should laugh at the expression on his face or want to shoot myself in the foot for it.

"…Should I ask what that was for or do I not want to know what I did to piss you off?"

I blinked several times, my arms floundering behind me before I toppled off of the trunk, finding myself sprawled on the floor. "I…" I quirked a single eyebrow. "…What the hell?"

He hadn't moved to put his hand on the red mark on his face until then, and he only reached up and tested the corner of his mouth for blood with his thumb before he grumbled, "Right, I'll guess that means that if I want to remain sane I won't ask again."

Still extremely confused, I finally cried, "I'm sorry! I don't know what—Jeez! Sorry!"

"Don't bother," he muttered back. "You don't even know what to be sorry for."

"You mean _besides_ punching you in the face?"

He rolled his eyes. "That's _not_ what I meant." At my questioning look, he growled, "You can't remember what made you on edge, so it's not your fault your reflexes made you punch me."

"Ah." Watching as he wiped a small amount of blood from the corner of his mouth and then leaned back against the trunk of my guardian tree again, having sat up to speak and leaned back when I struck out, I said, "Really, I am sorry, even if I'm not sure why I did it. I didn't mean to."

Seeming exasperated, he sighed, "I _know_, Ketsue."

"But I'm sure _you_ do," I continued as though he hadn't spoken. He glanced sideways at me, expression unreadable, and didn't respond. Unsure whether my assumption was correct, I asked, "You can see my dreams, right?"

"Hn."

"…Fine." I sighed, rolling over and pressing my back against the wall beneath the window as I yanked up the thin, fleecy blanket I had dragged from my bed over my shoulders. "G'night."

"It's not night anym—"

"Good _night_, Hiei," I repeated, interrupting him and then closing my eyes.

He gave a low snort but said nothing else, and insomnia finally cut me some slack and surrendered sleep to me quickly.

It seemed that the dreams returned as soon as my eyelids touched. This time, though, my mind did not seem so quick to erase what I had seen, and I retained the memory. Even as I was waking up, they were continuing and it waved a bright, flashing light in my mind that it was a vision rather than a simple dream. I honestly didn't see much. Most of it was blurred imagery that was squished together and didn't seem to make too much sense—a battle, maybe? I just saw the way Hiei's form stuck out as it moved in front of me and between me and a sword, and I knew that if I could do nothing to change it, Hiei was going to die.

Unlike usual, my thoughts did not question this as I stumbled for my bed, weak-legged. They didn't marvel at the fact that my legs were shaking as they generally did after a vision, and I didn't wonder if my mind was playing tricks on me. I only thought of how to change it, that I _needed_ to stop it. And the easiest way of doing so would be to make sure I wasn't wherever I was when the fight took place, and the simplest solution to that—being that I could not be sure where I was at the time, since it had been so blurred—was for me not to be _anywhere_. My mind worked in strange ways when I was panicked, and I thought up rash but effective decisions which I planned to follow through with without stopping to consider, and so I immediately summoned my energy sword and lined it up with my wrist.

I recognized Hiei's grasp as soon as it slipped around the hand that held my sword, but I ignored it, intending to go through with it no matter how silly it was now that he was aware of it; with all the wounds I had survived through, it was ridiculous to assume that a simple slit wrist would kill me when he knew I was doing it.

"No you don't."

I struggled against his strong grasp; I could hear strain in his voice, so obviously I wasn't as weak as I thought I was in comparison to him. "Let _go_ of me!"

"So you can kill yourself? I don't think so."

I fought against him for only a few moments more before submitting to his strength and letting my arm go slack; he bent my wrist backward, and I released the sword, allowing it to clatter to the ground. I wondered with little more than curiosity whether or not Hiei was forcing my parents to remain asleep and not notice the noise we were making. "What the hell were you thinking?"

I didn't respond, and I refused to meet his gaze.

"At least look at me." His voice wasn't rough or angry, it just seemed exasperated and mildly impatient, and perhaps it wouldn't be too far to go to say worried as well.

"What, so you can do your interpret-everything-through-the-eyes thing? Not likely." My mind was closed to the jagan, at least most of the way. That was not my concern about looking to him. If he had indeed seen my dreams, I knew that if I gave him the chance to even glance at my eyes, he would likely know exactly why I had attempted it.

Hiei sighed heavily, shortly, sounding almost as though he was worn down. "Ketsue, just tell me what drove you to try. It's not like you expect _me_ to judge you."

I glared sideways at him, but was unable to see him through the wall of hair that hid my face from his gaze. "Leave me alone, Hiei. Don't interfere with my problems. I can take care of myself."

"If by 'take care of' you mean it the way Yusuke uses those words when he's speaking about what he'll do to an enemy, then I suppose you can. But if you mean actually look after yourself, obviously you're incapable of that."

"I'm not a kid. Stop trying to father me."

"I'm _not_," Hiei growled, sounding frustrated. "You're just being an idiot."

"Oh, and how was I being I different from _you_?" I spat angrily, and immediately felt regret at my words even though I didn't understand them, but I didn't correct myself. The voice had been my own, but it had been pure feeling that told me he had tried the same thing before, though likely for different reasons. I figured that I had had a sort of memory of Chichiro's, one without substance and that only offered my knowledge of the past without details.

Hiei didn't respond for a moment, and then I heard a low, soft sigh that seemed like a warning to me that he was getting pissed off. "I guess you aren't different from me, if you're talking about a few years ago. I'm not like this anymore."

I just snorted, angry with him for the first time in a long while; the feeling was foreign to me, and it felt wrong.

"Ketsue."

"What?"

"Tell me. Now."

I heard the clear command in his voice, and I knew I wouldn't hold out in the conversation much longer. It wasn't entirely the intimidation, it was just the way Hiei could easily manipulate me—no one could withstand Hiei's order and not oblige. "I…had a vision."

Hiei seemed taken aback, as if he had thought it had been about something miniscule like when I used to cut myself. "A vision? Of what?" The authority was long gone from his voice, and he sounded like his normal self again. Well, normal around me; it seemed like there were two different demeanors Hiei had—tough and merciless around anyone other than myself, and then almost if not caring with me.

"I…" I wanted to say 'nothing', but it would be a futile, unrealistic dream to hope that he would believe that. "…don't want to tell you."

Hiei raised an eyebrow. "Don't want to and eventually will, or don't want to and will refuse to?"

"The latter, I guess."

"You _guess_?"

"…The latter," I reiterated flatly.

"I can just look into your mind when you're sleeping. And besides, you know you'll tell me. You're unable to hide things from me."

"I wake up if you delve too deep into my mind," I replied strictly, "and I can hold out with this one thing."

"For how long?" Hiei mused quietly, and I closed my eyes and growled softly, but I sensed him turn and spring out the window; his energy was on the roof immediately.

_I will_, I made myself believe, my mental tone nearly angry, but even through that it was racing with ways of stopping what I had seen. It was obvious Hiei wouldn't let me kill myself (It had been the most obvious solution—if I was dead, Hiei couldn't die for me.), and thus I had to find some other way of preventing it entirely. If I had succeeded in my suicide attempt, the situation would have never sprung up, and the entire thing would be—

My eyes widened. If he wasn't here in Ningenkai, than he wouldn't be around to try. It was obvious I wouldn't be able to escape the situation, because I hadn't seen where it was or when, I just knew it would be some time within this year or the next, just because of how young I still looked.

If I could make him leave, he would be safe. I wouldn't be, if him saving me was the only way for me to survive, but I couldn't care less about my own safety in comparison to his.

"Hiei!" I ran for the window sill, shoving my knees onto the trunk and leaning out the screen-lacking window. "You have to leave!"

He gave me an odd, but obviously disapproving look. "After what just happened? I don't think—"

"Now!"

His stunned expression lasted only a fraction of a second before he growled irritably, "And why the hell would I do that?"

"Because if you don't, you'll die!" I spat back, with more anger than I'd intended.

Again, he looked stunned only briefly. "And you know this?" he asked, his voice doubtful. As if it hit him late, he then asked in a more believing tone, "Your vision?" I was aware that I'd winced, as I read it in his face that he knew the answer to his question. "What was it of?"

I gave a quick, exasperated sigh. "What do you think? You have to leave, or it'll be my fault!" I felt the faint sensation of his jagan across my mind, and I opened it to him to show him what I'd seen.

Strangely, at least strange-seeming to me, he didn't seem surprised by it and didn't question the validity of the vision. Instead, he looked irritated that I wanted him to leave, almost…angry? His tone matched the thought. "Do you expect me to just sit around and watch you die?!"

"That's _exactly_ what I expect you to do!" I threw back in a feral shout. "After all, that's what you expect _me_ to do if you stay, isn't it?!"

He quieted, and my steady glare remained focused on him. It struck me as amusing in a grave sort of way that we were fighting so harshly when our only true concern was the welfare of the other.

Silence descended as I tried to think of a way to persuade him to leave.

I realized something, then. His eyes had held no fear, no regret, and no desire to change it. _He had already known._

"This is what you were talking about," I realized, my eyes growing large as horror woke within me. I slid my legs off the trunk, numbly leading me backward toward my bed once more, eyes downcast but wide all the same. Out of simple reflex, when he put his hands on my shoulders, I struck his chest with my fist, withdrawing at the last moment, though it still earned a small grunt from him. I felt myself begin to tremble, and I narrowed my eyes before squeezing them shut, sinking to the floor on my knees. I felt him steady me as I sank to the ground, crying, "_Isn't_ it?!" in an accusing tone. As I thought back to when he had nearly killed me when my training had begun, a quote of what he had said months back slipped through my lips. "'It's because of what you drive me to do'. You knew!" I felt my nails draw blood as they scraped weakly across the skin on his collarbone, and finally I fell limp against him. "You knew," I sobbed again, clenching my teeth. "My dreams…I saw this months ago and you knew the whole time."

He held me in silence a long time, offering no comfort or correction, and the lack of it made my sobs shake my shoulders all the harder. If he had known, then surely he would have left already if he intended to save himself. After that realization passed through my mind, I opened my eyes slowly, staring blankly at the ground as my sobs finally subsided.

He didn't love me. He couldn't have—I wasn't Chichiro, at least not by my consideration then, and thus no love interest of his. So why would he…?

"Ketsue—" he began softly, but my voice slashed through his like the blade of my sword.

"Why?!" I pushed back off him, only slightly, and finally met his eyes. My expression was likely something close to fierce, then, although I wasn't sure if it was with anger or with my love for him. "Why didn't you _tell_ me? Did you make me forget this, too?"

His eyes were gentle, pained as he watched me in silence. Gentle was not a word to be used about Hiei, but then what I had seen in the vision seemed unlike him as well. No, unlike his anime self. Perhaps, in reality, he would.

I leaned onto him again and wrapped my arms around his neck, hugging him tightly as my face clenched with my tears. His arms found their way about my back, beneath my shoulder blades, and I was unwilling to break the quiet for a while. Then, I murmured, "You know you have to leave, don't you?" The way my tone was right then, it did not seem a question, but I knew he would recognize it as one.

It may seem strange, as it does even to me, but he nodded. I'm still not sure how I was able to make him leave, and so easily, but he slid out from the embrace far too soon for my liking. A few years after remaining like that and perhaps I would have been ready, but even then I doubt it.

Without speaking again or glancing back as he turned around, he sprang from my view and his energy retreated from the range in which I could sense it.

Drawing my elbows up by my ears and positioning my hands on my hair, I dragged my knees up to my chest and collapsed sideways, riddled with sobs at the knowledge of what I had just done and that he was never to return to me. My life with him, it seemed, was over, and with it, so forever was my happiness. Shakily through my sobs I whispered over and over again, "I love you, Hiei, I love you so much."

* * *

**Authoress's Note:** No, this isn't the end of the fanfiction and no, this isn't the end of Hiei and Ketsue. I've got a long way to go before this is over.

Because some people seem confused, I figure I should clarify exactly what Ketsue saw. If you don't read close, you wouldn't catch it, but she says in the narration that she "didn't see much" herself, and it's not written out in a lengthy version or anything. Just that "I just saw the way Hiei's form stuck out as it moved in front of me and between me and a sword, and I knew that if I could do nothing to change it, Hiei was going to die." Basically she had a vision of Hiei dying for her, and figured it was better for him to leave all together to make sure he wouldn't have the chance to. She thinks this decision might get herself killed if the situation still arises, but we all know that doesn't matter too much compared with the ultimate bishie.


	33. Separation

**Authoress's Note:** Yeah, so this is probably the angstiest chapter of the fanfiction so far, and not one I'm entirely fond of. I apologize in advance—it'll pass. Also, _wow_ has the timing of this fanfiction changed since my original plan. Nearly all of the events in this chapter were supposed to have already happened by this point, or were switched around. XD Ah, well. It still works well enough. X3

_In response to **Kuroi**: _Wish you had an account on fanfiction-dot-net—then I could just email you back. XD Anyway, I'm glad you like the fanfiction and glad that I have at least one person wondering about the truth behind the story. ;3 How far in the past tense is this fanfiction? The current part of the story took place in the summer of 2004. Soon to be fall and winter of 2004—it says so somewhere in another Authoress's Note, but hell if I can remember where. As to your other questions, they're answered in the previous chapter. Just gotta look hard enough (and I've also added a note at the end to explain, since people seem confused). X3

Also, no, I'm not gonna answer all reviews like this nor do I plan to answer many more like this in the future. I normally just email people back; otherwise, unless there's a question or something of the like, I can't do much to respond if the review isn't signed. I appreciate them anyhow!

**Disclaimer:** Neither Hiei or YuYu Hakusho are mine.

**Claimer:** Chichiro and Ketsue are mine, Kaze is BritKit, Aria is FoxWitch. While not all the characters are mine, all writing, storylines and concepts in this fanfiction (Save any YYH references) are (This includes Nirvana, Spike, all shadowcats, the shadowcat species, Escque, Mahdaegrahs/entities, scorpios etcetera.).

* * *

Morning found the memory of the previous night raw, and my emotions no less such. I was reluctant to acknowledge the feeble light snaking across my bed, unwilling to admit that when I turned over, Hiei was not going to be outside my window glaring at me impatiently, wondering exactly what had me worked up _this_ time.

I drew my tongue over my bottom lip, biting onto it, only gentle enough to ensure that I didn't draw blood as I tried to calm the clench of my jaw and relax the muscles of my face. My attempt at restraining my tears was about as feeble as was my stab at not crying, but luckily I had cried enough last night to leave me too blank for it to last long. Sliding my arm over beneath me and pushing up, I felt as though I was moving in slow motion as I sat up.

The previous night had been something far worse than 'rough'. It must have been a few weeks since I last slept alone without the knowledge that Hiei was there with me, and it felt unnatural to even try. He hadn't been sleeping next to me for long, but I had become so used to the security of feeling him behind me or at least sensing him nearby that I had felt bitter and alone. I had decided to sit up to sleep, pressing myself against the wall in a vain attempt to either suffice for the lack of Hiei behind me or to at least make believe that I was not in the human world, but rather the demon world; in such a case, I would normally have to sleep on the ground or in a tree, leaning against the trunk to support myself and make sure that I did not fall.

"Rachel!"

The jerk of my body as I caught the sound of my mother's voice was automatic, having not expected to hear it. The surprise did not shift my expression, and I sat in silence a moment, then drew in a deep breath and opened my mouth to respond. With Hiei no longer here, my humans would expect me here most of the time. Without him to distract them, if I needed a break, I'd have to be like any other human teenager and either deal with it, bitch at a friend about it or run away. The only places I'd have to run to would be Kaze's house—which was not an unreasonable distance from mine—and the worlds I'd been to with Hiei, places I was no longer able to go. The shock of "being human" was disturbing to me, more so when I realized I had no where to go to, no chance of escape from the tedious and mundane every-day life of a normal person. "Yeah?"

"You up yet?"

"I am now," I called back down, monotonous only to a point; I had to force some tone into my voice or I'd have my mother asking what was wrong to deal with as well. "What do you want?"

"Joanna's on the phone!"

I sighed heavily, leaned onto my hands and allowed the corners of my lips to melt down and reveal my gritted teeth as I briefly let myself cry, 'briefly' being ten seconds or so. It'd be better to get it out of my system now, so I could look to my mother and act to Kaze as if nothing was wrong. The consideration of telling Kaze was only that—a consideration. There was no way that I could possibly force myself to pass through my lips, 'Hiei's gone and not coming back,' or 'Hiei left and he isn't ever coming back for me.' The simple thought of wording it made my ever-persistent gut wrench return, threatening to make me crumble into uncontrolled sobs again. I didn't bother pondering how weak and simpering I must have appeared. No one was around to see it, and if they had been, I wouldn't have cared, unless it was someone in my human life. If that was the case, I'd have to keep myself calm and feign happiness, or at least neutrality.

I made myself out to look far groggier than I felt, only so that if the circles under my eyes from crying still showed, I could use the cover of sleepiness. After I'd taken the phone from my mother, I waited until I was halfway back up the stairs to actually speak into the receiver. "Hey, Kaze."

"Hey, Hi-Chan. You sound tired."

"Something like that," I mumbled back, flopping down on the bed.

"Well, wake up. Are we carpooling to Shannon's or what?"

Apparently, while I was gone fighting demons and such, I was supposed to have been informed about Aerie's—or Shannon's—party. What it was for, I can't for the life of me remember. I'm fairly sure it _wasn't_ her birthday, for I believe more people went to that. Perhaps it wasn't even really a full-out 'party', just a conjoined get-together. "I guess so."

"…You forgot," Kaze muttered flatly, sounding annoyed.

"Sure," I decided on. It was far simpler to agree than to explain I'd never been told about it in the first place.

"Well, do you at least have Shannon's address?"

"Give me, please," I replied in an attempted cutesy manner.

"Augh. You're impossible."

"Yeah, yeah."

* * *

I honestly can't recall if we ended up carpooling or not. It seems like it was such a long time ago, now.

Kaze, T'nuviel and I were the only there. Our day began with fighting over Aerie's (ridiculously awesome) hammock, with was more of a hanging chair than anything, and watching Aerie show off her karate skills. Unlike the karate course I took, she learned using weapons and it was for offensive purposes rather than defensive like my own. Thus, she showed off how to use a wooden pole, then let us look at her sais. Despite the fact that I call it 'showing off', I quite enjoyed watching her.

And then, a game was suggested. I was quickly feeling crowded since I was not used to so much human (Though it was safe to say few or none of us there were actually human.) interaction and it was coming on a bit fast; the fact that I could think of nothing but Hiei didn't help much. Nor did the fact that whenever conversation was dull, Kaze always found a funny story about Hiei that I had told her and decided to relay it onto T'nuviel and Aerie, who both knew at least roughly who he was.

We had been at Brookside when the topic has initially had relevance. First introduced to me by T'nuviel but spoken about before by Kaze, Brookside was a small creek that ran not long from T'nuviel's house, and about a half-hour from Aerie's place. It was a short distance behind something similar to a rec center, and it's fairly impossible to explain beyond the fact that it had magical qualities. The field before it had been infested with some of the same magic, and crossing said field with the intent to go to Brookside was impossible if you ran; sounds odd, but if it was not a pressing emergency (This I learned during another, unrelated incident.), then you were not allowed to pick up speed to get there. One must walk, and I was told by Aerie, T'nuviel and Kaze that shoes were forbidden within the gates—figurative gates that could only be felt, of course. Watches and clocks were useless within Brookside, and although it was not forbidden to take them within, it was not recommended—I had seen an instance myself in which T'nuviel and I had been within the gates for about forty-five minutes, yet because she had forgotten to take her watch off, the hands had slowed to match the warped time of Brookside and we arrived back to her house late thanks to it.

On this particular day, I was pressed by T'nuviel and Kaze to tell Aerie about my Karn past-life. I did not trust Aerie as I trusted the other two, and thus I summed it up as, "Karn are an ancient race quite like werewolves, but they've been enemies with werewolves since the beginning of time. I'm one of them, and my Kaoorish name is Aletta."

Kaze commented with amusement that it was the shortest version of what Karn were that she'd ever heard.

After this, Aerie pulled T'nuviel off to the side and they went for a walk alone in Brookside's woods, leaving Kaze and I to our own thoughts.

The woods of Brookside, I figure I should mention, never have set trails. They change often and the paths back are never the same as they were when you headed somewhere. The first time I was told about it, I admit that I didn't believe such a thing was possible in the human world; after all, it sounded like bad movie material, over-used in many of the cheesier fantasy films. Yet after I witnessed the phenomenon myself, I bothered T'nuviel about it for several minutes afterward, unable to shake the feeling of amazement and the stunned grin from my face.

I also must clarify something else about the woods—to a non-human who respects the rules, boundaries and is aware of the life of the forest and creek, Brookside is not evil. The intent of the change is not meant for ill purposes and it does not seek to force one to get lost—even if someone tried to get lost within the woods there, the trails would only change to lead them back safely.

As Kaze and I sat on the broken concrete slabs hanging across the creek, dangling our legs over and admiring the water below our feet, I turned to watch Aerie and T'nuviel arrive back. Their private chat had lasted only a few minutes; I suspected they had talked about me, though I possessed only two ideas as to what about—either Aerie did not believe the story of the Karn, or she realized I did not trust her. Later upon my asking, T'nuviel informed me it was the latter.

When they came back then, however, only T'nuviel headed over to us. Aerie settled down at the water's edge, and this is where the relevance of this side-tale comes into play.

After sticking her feet in the water for a short time, Aerie snatched her foot back up as though she had felt something within the murky, unclear water. I had my suspicions initially, but when T'nuviel told us shortly after, "She said something grabbed her foot," Kaze and I exchanged horrified glances. _The Escque._ Of course, Kaze didn't know their name or that I was quite experienced in fighting them, but her memory of the night Hiei first killed the one in my shower was in-tact, and she automatically thought of the same thing as I did.

_But how did such an impure, evil species breach the barrier of Brookside…?_

Being that T'nuviel had not been told of the Escque, and Aerie had been told of nothing involving my non-human life save for the Karn story that had been forced out of me, they didn't understand what Kaze did when I told them that holding a ceremony (or spell or whatever they considered what we did) would not help. We did it anyway, predictably, because only Kaze seemed to realize I was not entirely incompetent when it came to matters of the non-human world; it seems nearly laughable to me, now, that the others were the ones regarded as the experts.

As I've said, I didn't trust Aerie the way I trusted Kaze and T'nuviel, and I didn't trust T'nuviel the way I trusted Kaze. Aerie was at the level of a spiritual human to me, which meant I would not tell her anything unless she asked, and even then I would withhold much. T'nuviel, I trusted with my life, but not all of my secrets. Kaze, I trusted with fairly much anything, lacking only a few of the things Hiei knew and the things that I had seen and done. But Hiei knew _everything_ about me, and he would have even if he didn't have a jagan. Outside of Hiei, Kaze knew the most about me.

After meditating a short time, all of us forming a circle with our backs to one another and facing the waves of Brookside's creek, T'nuviel told us that we must all sing the song that we were most comfortable with, or that we were most connected with. I can't remember her exact wording, but I knew what she meant all the same and chose "Whisper". Kaze chose "Hello", another Evanescence song, and I don't remember what Aerie and T'nuviel chose. After we'd all sung a verse (Or in T'nuviel's case, the entire song. I loved her dearly, but sometimes she did not understand her own elfish—hmm, what's the word?—self-centered mannerisms, if I lack the kindness to find a term more flattering.), the elf then told us we all must speak specific words pertaining to our elements. When it came time for me to do so, she told me to say something using 'Death', pretty much a short line of a verse that made the attempt to ward off the Escque.

"Death cannot fight off dead creatures," I told her, referring to the fact that death was my element.

T'nuviel's faith in her own knowledge was absolute, and so she said, "Just say it."

But I was a stubborn person back then, same as now if a bit toned down these years later. "No. Death can't do that."

She knew well enough by my tone that I would not be reasoned with, and she asked simply, "Then what do you suggest you say?"

"Nothing."

"You must say something for this to work."

'_I must nothing_,' I thought belligerently, but held my tongue. "No."

"Then tell me its name."

Those words startled me; not because they were stunning or in any way truly startling, but just because they were unexpected. "What? I don't know its name."

"You are much better than any of us with knowing names."

I didn't know where she got that, but through my discomfort, I felt a pride or arrogance at that. Even still, "I don't know its name. It doesn't have a name."

"Everything has a name," she told me simply.

Frustrated, I simply submitted and grumbled, "Makaian Escque." It wasn't a name, true, but it would satisfy her.

And only her, as Kaze proved when she quoted, "'Makaian Escque'?" like it was the stupidest thing she'd ever heard.

With a sigh, I growled with little gentleness and patience, "Yes. This thing is from Makai, thus 'Makaian'. The word 'soldier' in Makaian is 'Escque', and it's a soldier. So deal with it." It wasn't an entirely true statement, but it was close enough and it satisfied me.

Kaze just 'Oh'ed and didn't say anything further.

The ceremony closed not long after (The Escque surprisingly had been effected by it, but I believe it only left Brookside rather than being destroyed) and we headed back to Shannon's.

Back to the time I was speaking of before this, I declined about playing the game as politely as I felt I could at the time, which wasn't too damn politely. Even still, the three others badgered me, mainly using Kaze (who had the ability to talk me into many things that would be futile to attempt to get me to do for others.) to try to get me to join.

"I said no!" I cried finally, annoyed. "I don't want to play." I put on an impatient face, feeling natural irritation even if I had to pretend the rest.

Bear with me in the case of my fleeting memories—as I've said before, these weeks without Hiei I can recall little of, only short instances. Thus, I don't remember at this point if I stormed off to the backyard myself or if T'nuviel asked me to come along with her so that she could talk to me, but somehow I ended up in the backyard with her. Kaze and Aerie remained in the front yard.

Our discussion first started with her wondering why I didn't want to play. I explained I was not interested, that they just seemed to _want_ to annoy me that day and that I wanted no part in encouraging them to do so. But soon enough her ever-sharp powers of deduction made her realize there was something far deeper to it than I was willing to tell.

Nearing the end of the conversation, I had come close to tears several times. T'nuviel opted against continuing to ask me what it was that had made me like this, and instead settled on a different approach. "Whatever it is…Whatever's wrong…"

I finally felt myself becoming angry, but I didn't let it show. Really, I didn't let much of anything show and allowed her to believe that depression was my only emotion right then.

"…You have to move on. You have to go back to your life, and I'm not saying you have to pretend that nothing happened, but you can't let this weigh you down forever."

I was unsure of how she had picked up the extremity of my depression simply from not wanting to play a game, but she always had been aggravatingly perceptive and I didn't really think it mattered how she knew. Words tapped at the back of my mind—angry, hurt words that begged to be spoken. However, I was able to shove them down for several minutes of silence between us before I finally let them be said. "You said to go back to your life?"

She glanced expectantly over at me. "Yes?"

"He _was_ my life." I glared sideways, unable to meet her gaze. I forced myself to look at her as I spoke again. "Don't ever mention this conversation again," I growled bitterly, hating myself immediately for how harsh it sounded, and then I muttered, "Let's go," as I headed for the front yard and toward Kaze and Aerie.

Putting on a cheery face, I was smiling at the two standing waiting for us as I rounded the corner, telling them, "Okay, let's get this started already."

* * *

The days following Hiei's leaving and the party, he did attempt to return a few times. Each time, it seemed I had to find new tactics to get him to leave: Telling him to (Which didn't last very long at all), ignoring him until he at least went a few miles off, and then finally having to make a barrier around my house. It was a trick I had learned way back when he'd first arrived, but being that I refused to use it on myself and because I was rarely with my humans (And I mention them because in the coming weeks, they were the ones I had to use the ability on the most.), I didn't use it often and hadn't in a couple of months at least. His small attempts to come back scared me in some ways, for I thought it'd be impossible to get him to leave for Makai and never come back. In an entirely different way, they sort of comforted me—even if I did make him leave as soon as I realized he was near, at least I was able to sense his familiar energy and realize he wanted to stay as much as I wanted to be able to allow him to stay.

Although I had no idea exactly why for a short time, I picked up on the fact that during this time that Hiei had made something similar to an ofuda; perhaps it was more like a reverse-effect ofuda, one that cancelled the pain-reducing effects of my own and yet made him feel my pain as well. The only reason I noticed this was because of the fact that I was to start school in the very near future, and because of this I took a tour in my new high school so that I was at least semi-familiar with it when I started. How did I realize he felt my pain because of this? I foolishly decided to try out my new red-and-black Hottopic boots during said tour without wearing socks. The result? Huge, raw spots on the back of my ankles, and near the end of the tour, Tena (Who was showing me the high school along with my mother) volunteered to allow me to borrow her shoes, suggesting that we switched footwear. So, we finished the excursion with her (in her pink, girly clothing and short skirt) wearing knee-high "goth" boots, and me with my dark, goth clothes sporting bright green sandals with flowers on the top. I was grateful to her all the same

Hiei asked me later why my ankles hurt, and after telling him why and finding out exactly how he knew that my ankles hurt, I shooed him away yet again.

His return attempts were less frequent in the next week, and then suddenly stopped and I knew automatically when he left human world. I wasn't sure how it fit his "assignment" to leave Ningenkai, being that he was supposed to stay in this world and Kurama and the others were to monitor the situation in Makai, but he did not return for quite some time. I could only assume that Kurama, Kuwabara or Yusuke had returned to the human world to take his place, or that they had recruited someone new.

My journal became one of my best friends in those days, and at night I wasted hours on my laptop so that I could ignore the fact that I was also wasting my life by living as a human once again. I would have also tried to forget that Hiei was gone using this distraction, but that would have been rather hard seeing as how most of the journal entries were about him and my angstiness at his not being there.

For once in my life, I ached for school to start so that I could have something to consume my time and my focus, if only to force me to forget and so that all of my concentration could be aimed at something more constructive than my own self-pity.

* * *

Aside from starting out my first high-school year, ninth grade, September was an uneventful month for the first half. It gave me much time to ponder and consider on my own when I was avoiding homework, my humans and my thoughts of Hiei.

The impending decision I was to be forced to make weighed heavily on my mind in those weeks I spent alone without him. Should I become Chichiro fully so that I wouldn't have to worry about him needing to protect me, or should I give up my demonic nature to keep Aletta with me? She was my friend and I loved her by choice as well as by nature, she was my older self and she understood me. Chichiro, I loved only because she was part of me and I felt like I had to. She hated me, wanted to kill me and herself and Hiei, and I really only considered keeping her because lack of existence seemed too much a punishment even for her. Besides, without my demonic powers and without Chichiro, who was to say I'd be of any use to Hiei? Who was to say he'd _want_ to stay (Not that I'd let him, either way) if Chichiro was put out from existence? Hell, he'd probably be angry enough with me for it that—well, I guess I didn't want to consider _what_ he'd do. I figured he'd have much worse things to do than death and physical torture if I became solely human mixed with Kaoorish and my own self and lacking a sadistic yami.

It was during those random times when the decision haunted my consciousness that I began to recall a time when my internet friend, Terri, told me of her spirit battle with her own yami, Hakoge. Hakoge had respected her more and acted less yami-like after Terri defeated her in the spirit battle which, from what I understood, was a solely mental and spiritual experience that could leave physical evidence but not be shown _during_ the fight. If I could get somewhere secluded enough (Not hard, with how many places I'd been with Hiei. The thought and mention of him made me feel a pang of regret once again.) where I could fight her and find a convenient enough excuse to my parents for any wounds I may and would receive, perhaps I could beat Chichiro into submission and keep her and Aletta both. The idea seemed unrealistic if not impossible for me to beat her or to be able to keep her, but Aletta woke from her dormancy as soon as I concocted the idea and told me that it was the only way to keep her _and_ Chichiro. She told me it would have to be on my human birthday, the day I would have to make my choice, or incredibly close to the date or else it would not work.

As it would happen, on my birthday I was unable to go anywhere without my parents knowing. Now that I was without Hiei, there was no way to distract them or their minds so that I could leave, and transforming without him being there to make them forget if anything went wrong was too risky. I had to do this the human way, which meant that I would have to get to a park, and alone. But they wouldn't allow that when they thought I was only thirteen—soon to be fourteen—and thus I decided to call up Kaze, explain the situation to her, and drag her along so I could fight in peace. She couldn't do it until after my birthday, on the fifteenth, and for my entire birthday my body shocked me with a physically painful reminder that I needed to fight or choose. It was all I could do to act normally until the time came to fight Chichiro.

After Mom dropped Kaze and I off at Mendon Ponds Park, I left Kaze after explaining that no human or any other could witness the battle. I wasn't entirely sure how I knew that _myself_, but it was a feeling I got and by then I had learned to trust my feelings.

My memory of that day is fuzzy. I can barely recall much of the fight, but I do know that before the battle, Chichiro explained to me that I needed to find an external adversary to battle with. Being that there were no non-humans for her to possess besides Kaze (Who I was not positive was a non-human, and who I refused to hurt even if Chichiro would be the one I was really hitting), I had to work with what I had. What I had was a tree. How heroic I felt to be battling my inner self whilst using a thick, hard, painful-to-hit tree as a punching bag.

Of course, after a short time I became unaware of my true surroundings and the battle truly took off once it became purely mental. True, Chichiro still felt like a tree when I hit her and it reminded me of what I was actually doing, but I paid no mind to that.

Our location changed, as well—the trees in the area cleared out in my mind, leaving a large open space littered only with grass; woods still surrounded us, but they were many yards away and we never entered them.

I admit that beforehand, even if I knew she was powerful, I had completely underestimated Chichiro. She was a skilled fighter, likely more skilled than me even in my demon form, and—even better—I had to fight her as a human for the whole thing to work. Aletta had been very brief with the rules. My yami, on the other hand, was more than happy to fill me in on what would be a disadvantage to me, and the fact that pretty much none of the rules restricted her in any way. The object of the battle, strange as it sounds even to me, was to kill the other spiritually. While this would render us technically deceased for a few days, our spirits would repair themselves not long after and we would not remain dead. The winner of this battle would determine "pecking order" in my body, and if Chichiro had won, she would have gained complete control. Luckily enough for me and easy enough to figure out for any who read this, she did not, but that comes later.

The match pitted her demonic fighting ability versus my human form's karate; it's easy enough to deduce who had the upper hand. She had such an unfair advantage, in fact, that I had to seek out my other 'yami' in order not to be slain.

"Aletta!" I cried as I found myself able to summon and use a spiritual weapon, which was a blade that looked different from the one I normally had thanks to the fact that I was currently 'human', to block against Chichiro's sword. Hers was a sort of katana of light that greatly resembled a shorter version of Kuwabara's spirit sword, surrounded by a bluish swirl of wind. "I need you!"

_Of course, dear,_ came her smooth, silky voice in my mind. _Been such a long time since you rang._

I had thought I needed to meditate, concentrate and control her release. However, I was amazed by her strength as she forced control of my body away from me, wrenching it as easily from me as it was to take sweets from a child's hand.

Unlike other times, I was still in my body, my soul not separated, and I not only felt the pain of it, but its movements and exhaustion. I was able to relax, however, and allow Aletta to do what I needed her to.

"Don't give up on me now, comrade!" she cried, grinning faintly at me, for although I could not see it, I could feel it upon my face. "You go slack, so do I, sweetheart."

'Sweetheart' was mainly spoken with a sarcastic edge, but there was some affection behind it anyway.

_Okay,_ I responded mentally, forcing myself not to slacken my posture. Although she was doing the battling now, it seemed the fight was still to be difficult for me and not quite as simple as I had assumed and hoped it would be.

My memory beyond that point in the fight is sketchy enough that if I wrote any more than what follows, I'd be making it up as I went: Chichiro and I stood apart from one another, glaring challenges and she opened her mouth to speak, but I cannot recall what she said. She ran for me and thanks to Aletta's reflexes, I was able to dodge well enough not to get killed but her sword still punctured my ribs and I had a hard time remaining conscious. I then proceeded, or perhaps Aletta did, to lop off Chichiro's head (spiritually. Remember, it would not kill her permanently) and win the fight, however the hell I'd managed that, but I found that my wound remained even after Chichiro's spirit left the tree and after I returned to my body from wherever my consciousness had gone for the battle.

I tried to heal myself, a thing which I had not done in months. I did not enjoy using my powers on myself, for I felt it was a waste of energy, but being that I figured I'd have no help from now on in the way of keeping myself alive, I needed to start to try and look after myself better. Rather than heal my stab wound fully, however, I sealed it off to leave no evidence on the outside of my body, and slowed the bleeding internally enough so that my body could heal itself from that point on (The slow way, unfortunately. No more fast demon healing for me.). Then I moved to the smaller cuts on my face, arms and hands. Even still, the backs of my hands were scratched up to the point of looking like a giant red scab, and I could do little but wipe off the blood, suck it up and return to Kaze.

I had apparently picked a bad day for my spirit battle, and I was glad I had completed it when I had—there were hundreds of humans about in the fields where I'd left Kaze, all dressed in exercise gear and such; a marathon or convention of some sort was to take place, I figured.

After fishing through the crowds of people, I located Kaze and dragged her off to a quieter place to hang out until I could compose myself better, and a few minutes later found us sitting near (or in my case against) the trunk of a tree. I had my eyes closed and Kaze had my hand in her palm, and her fingers were lightly tracing over the cuts along my knuckles and massaging the tears on my skin.

"You look better than I thought you would," she commented after we'd sat in silence for quite some time.

"Only 'cause I healed myself some," I muttered back, opening my eyes to look at her, then to my knuckles as her fingertips brushed a sensitive spot. As I drew in a small, sharp breath, she let go and moved to sit next to me, leaning close to my good shoulder and resting her head there. "My hands…" I mumbled faintly, lifting one up to look at it closer. Though my words had been sparked by the notice of the various cuts, I now examined it for its strangeness, for its unfamiliarity. I had become so accustomed to my demon form that the fact that my hand no longer looked bony and that I could no longer see the tendons and ligaments forming ridges along my knuckles made the hand seem entirely foreign and not my own.

"Do they hurt?"

My eyes slid sideways to look at Kaze the best I could, which wasn't very well. Her positioning hindered my ability to see her face, so I looked forward once again. "A little." It was so strange to feel human, to feel vulnerable and to know that if I didn't get my act together, I could very easily get killed. Sure, I'd realized that before, but I had always known Hiei was there to protect me and kick the asses of anybody who got the better of me. He'd always come to my rescue, but if Chichiro could come so close to killing me—even spiritually—I would be in big trouble if the Escque continued pursuing me.

And yet at that moment I couldn't concentrate on that entirely. No, I found that my focus leaned more toward Kaze's presence and the fact that somehow, it made me feel calmer and like, even if Hiei was no longer here, I was not alone.

It didn't and wouldn't last, but in that fleeting moment, I was freed from my sadness and I was content to feel human. If only for a moment.

* * *

Beyond explaining the condition of my hands to my mother (I used a fall to cover it. After all, my human form was of a clumsy sort and it was believable.), I had another human-world event to worry about: My birthday party. Not exactly a dark subject, to be sure, but after what happened the weekend after my fourteenth birthday, I never again requested or wanted to celebrate my turning a year older with a party. This was the fault of Chichiro, recovered from her spiritual death and past the submissive state she had been in the days after the battle.

The night began routine enough: cake, blowing our candles, opening presents that for the life of me I can't remember now, and lots and lots of talking.

T'nuviel, Kaze and Aria were the three that I invited, the only three of the human world I cared to see then. I had seen Aria a few days after I arrived back in the human world, and a couple of days before Hiei left. The day she dropped me off at my home after an outing, I noted one of the first of many ordinary-seeming occurrences that I would come to recognize as omens. There was no one to teach me to recognize these things, and it was either knowledge of a past life seeping into my current one or instinct that made me recognize the signs. As we were pulling up to my human-world home, I noted six ravens in front of my house; a common sight for the area I lived in, but I'd never before sensed anything ominous about the birds. This time, I did, and after the vision I had that forced me to send Hiei away, I realized it was a warning of things to come. I never really regarded the birds in the same fashion after that, and was always careful to count their number and pay attention to their energies and mannerisms.

Back to the night of my birthday party, however, there were no ravens telling me that anything bad was to commence. No, all seemed calm as my three human-world friends and I sat in our pajamas and sleeping bags and talked in the near-dark of my family room, undisturbed for hours by my parents, Adam and Tena. As the night went on, our conversations took a more interesting turn, and mentions of the non-human world began to come into play.

Back then, I enjoyed any chance to release my yami if it meant being able to meet another. Having long since gotten over my fear of Seera, at least for the most part, I relished being in her company. Yamis are fascinating creatures even if they do possess the inherent ability to be terrifying at will. Thus, when it was suggested that Chichiro be released and that T'nuviel (I leave Kaze out because she had a horrible sleep-over habit: She fell asleep before ten almost every time, and by the hour that our yamis were released, she was long gone into the dream world.) was allowed to meet Seera for the first time, I leapt at the idea gladly.

First, however, I had to alert my friends to a strange fact that I, myself, did not entirely understand: There was a rift _inside_ my house. It was small, and there were no Escque spilling from it. Rather, there were hundreds of dark souls, and they had begun to infest the room around us, filling every crack of my house and beginning to seep outside. Even if I no longer desired to use my demon form to fight simply to avoid memories and protect myself from hurt, I realized easily enough that I had to close it. My body recognized this fact easily enough as well, and before I even made up my mind to close the fissure between worlds, my mouth was moving and reciting the familiar spell that forced shut the rift.

Although previously engrossed in a discussion she was having with Aria and Kaze (Who by that point had not fallen asleep), T'nuviel recognized my silence quickly. "What is it?"

Being that I couldn't interrupt the spoken spell to tell them what I was doing, I began to sign out letters-only in sign language the word 'incantation'. I knew that T'nuviel at least would be able to read it, though Aria was the one who guessed halfway through something other than the actual word. I can't remember now what it was, but I slipped and said 'no' aloud before recovering the spell and beginning to mutter it again. Frustrated, I restarted. I was watching thousands of dark spirits that none of my friends could see invade my home while I was attempting to close the rift they were spilling from while spelling something in sign language at the same time. I really wished I had been able to speak. Luckily, at 'I-n-c-a-n-t', T'nuviel understood and said, "Incantation."

Immediately, Aria nodded and said, "Oh," in understanding.

I offered only a small smile as I went on mumbling the familiar, repeating words, and continued on with closing the rift and attempted at the same time to draw the dark spirits back into it.

It actually didn't take as long as I'd thought it would, nor were any hurt because of the leak, at least to my knowledge. It was strange that I had never before seen that type of rift, and yet only some two weeks after I stopped fighting the Escque and the expansion of Makai, one opened within my human-world home. Either I was still a target and the mastermind of the invasion—Atenre, most likely—knew of my current outlook on the war, or it was a very, very conveniently-timed coincidence.

Only minutes after, Seera was released by Aria and when I was sure the other yami was "out", I allowed Chichiro control of my body. I had never been particularly fond of closing my eyes and taking them off of Seera when she was in control of my friend's form, so I made sure that the release was quick.

Of the things I recall in the time I spent without Hiei, this night is one of the clearer memories I possess. This is, unfortunately, due only to what Chichiro decided to do despite the fact that our spiritual battle was supposed to control her better; in fact, I now believe perhaps her actions were _due_ to the spirit battle, and the fact that she lost.

It is always a bad idea to allow two yamis out at the same time; this should be common knowledge. However, Seera and my own darker half behaved themselves relatively well. They only schemed to kill the slumbering Kaze once, and at T'nuviel's request, Chichiro stopped and told Seera to do so as well. I'm still amazed to this day how much of an influence T'nuviel had on Chichiro.

Not long after this point, my yami decided that it was a far better idea to turn on Seera. Perhaps she sensed that she was the stronger of the two, or perhaps she was simply curious about how easily Seera would submit to her. Whatever the case, beginning first with conversation and then with threatening movements, she began to advance on Aria's yami.

It wasn't long before Seera's cowardice was revealed for the first time to me; cowardice that forced her to retreat back into Aria's body, and thus she allowed my friend control of her form once more.

"Chiro-Chan?" she asked, using a nickname for me she still used despite the fact that 'Chichiro' was now recognized more as my yami's name than my own, wariness just hinted at in her voice. I knew that she was aware of why Seera had retreated, and that she hoped the same as Seera—that Chichiro would go away if Seera did.

She didn't. Her hand snapped out and snagged the back of Aria's neck roughly, clamping onto it tightly as she shoved Ri-Chan's head down slightly, pulling her closer. "Didn't think I'd get through, did you?" Chichiro seethed arrogantly, obviously relishing Aria's gasp. I could feel her fear running into Chichiro's fingertips, and I could hear her breath increasing, but I could do nothing. Chichiro was completely blocking me out. I was helpless. It was this amazing, overwhelming power she had to force me to remain outside my own body while she put my friends in danger that had given me an initial wariness to allow her time possessing my body. "You thought that your human could save you, didn't you? That just because your own yami is a coward and will not attack that I won't either?"

Aria didn't move. She was trembling, and she said nothing. Actually, she said nothing the rest of the time that Chichiro had possession of my body. Chichiro finally slacked her hold and released her, but immediately advanced toward Aria, backing her into the corner between the bookshelf and the chair that T'nuviel sat in.

I could focus on nothing but Aria's fear-induced loud breathing and the terror seeping from within her aura until T'nuviel spoke. The guilt was overwhelming.

"Stop. Seera is gone, and you have no quarrel with Leah."

"She is weak," my yami growled in response to the elf. "And you do not even like her."

"But I can protect her all the same." I had expected T'nuviel to defend the statement about not liking her, but if she honestly still didn't or if it was just to keep from aggravating Chichiro, I never knew.

Chichiro's attention slid from Aria to T'nuviel. I'm not sure if it was what the elf planned, but it was what she got. "What are you going to do? What _can_ you do to stop me? You will not hurt me—it would hurt the human. And you certainly do not care for this weakling, so you will not defend her by putting yourself in harm's way."

"You weren't like this the last time," T'nuviel said softly.

Chichiro almost drew back. I could feel the tension of the muscles in her legs even though I wasn't possessing my body, but she never stepped back and it was not visible. "I told you that you hated me," she purred, grinning toothily as her hiss of a voice began again. "You just needed time to see the 'real me', didn't you?"

"Please. Don't hurt her."

"You don't like her," Chichiro reiterated. "I don't know why you defend her."

For whatever reason, I could sense that my yami didn't want to try and hurt Aria anymore. That didn't mean she didn't harbor the desire to inflict pain on her—she just didn't want to actually carry through with it. For the same, fascinating reason that she had opened up to T'nuviel and had not hurt Kaze because T'nuviel had requested she didn't, she didn't want to harm Aria simply because T'nuviel didn't want her to. Still, her own pride would not allow her to say so outright. The elf need only say the perfect words to give Chichiro an excuse to stop, and she would.

"It will be morning soon," T'nuviel noticed calmly. She later told me that she'd been expecting Chichiro to attack her at any moment while she spoke and while she tried to deter violence. Her self-control was astounding. "Rachel told me once that yamis don't like being out in the daytime."

It was not for a reason so cliché as a vampire's dislike for sunlight. No, I believe that my yami and others simply liked the shadows because they had excellent night vision, and their 'prey' often did not. The darkness hid their own expressions, and gave them an unfair advantage. Perhaps it was for another reason—the ones I've given are simply guesses.

Whether Chichiro still thought the same thing was questionable. What was true, though, was that those were the magic words that allowed Chichiro to give up without openly giving in. "This is true," she muttered coldly, though her usual taunting smirk was still present on her face. She turned to Aria, who drew in a sharp breath when Chichiro took a step toward her. "Perhaps we'll meet again. Pick up where we left off." She grinned toothily. "I suppose I should leave on that note and allow you to imagine next time on your own."

With that, she moved for the couch, sitting down and closing her eyes.

As soon as I entered my own body, I could see little more than the silhouettes of Aria and T'nuviel; after all, my night vision was poor compared to that of my spiritual body's. Sliding sideways onto the cushions, I squeezed my eyes shut briefly and pretended that I had not returned to my body yet.

"Rachel?" T'nuviel voiced softly, cautiously.

When I didn't answer, she didn't try again for a while.

She and Aria began talking quietly with one another as they both tried to calm themselves and one another and get their heads around what had happened.

I laid on the couch in silence for some time, holding myself and shaking, my eyes staring blankly ahead after I reopened them, hoping that they would forget about me or that I could disappear.

If T'nuviel hadn't been there, my own darker half would have killed one of my best friends. And I was powerless to stop it. And what of Kaze, who had slept in a content, clueless way the entire time? What if Chichiro had turned on her as she and Seera had planned before Chichiro's target switched to Seera?

I never chose to let Chichiro free ever again past that night.

It was likely fifteen minutes or even a half hour before T'nuviel spoke my name again.

"Yeah?" I croaked softly, finally figuring I should allow them to realize I was myself again.

"I wasn't sure you'd returned when I first asked you," the elf told me with relief. "I thought that maybe Chichiro was scheming to pretend to have given you control again or something."

She knew my tone well enough to realize it was me, I suppose.

I desired greatly to give a long-winded apology to Aria, to run over and hug her and tell her that I would never let Chichiro even remotely close to her again. Yet, all I could say was her name, and when she replied with a 'Yes?', "I'm sorry."

"…It's okay," she replied after a long pause.

In the morning, outside of telling Kaze what she had missed and slept through, we all pretended nothing out of the ordinary had happened, even if I couldn't look Aria straight in the eye yet.

* * *

Because I was in the human-world more often than I had been in months, it was only to be expected that I saw humans more often. This included my brother and his friends, and I began seeing his best friend, Jason, more than I had any time before. He was a kind, good kid who was impossible to dislike. He always had a loveable, goofy smile and he was nice to everyone.

I can't say I knew him well through anything but stories. I can't say that we talked often or that he regarded me as anything outside of 'Adam's little sister.' I can't say that we were even friends. But I loved him like I'd never loved a human.

There are few specific instances with him that I feel like describing. After all, an emotion spawned from certain incidents cannot be described, and so the significance of passing him in the hallway at school and learning to recognize his locker cannot be explained to another person. Nor can the feeling I got seeing him fall asleep during a movie the night his girlfriend broke up with him and seeing the peaceful expression he wore be put into words that display the reason it put a smile on my face. I can also not put into words why it put a smile on my face to hear him apologize in all sincerity for bringing his little sister (Who was my age, and the year before had been my worst enemy) over to my house after school without prior knowledge that I disliked her. I figure I shouldn't even try, and so I won't.

Fate hated me, of course. This much could be figured out easily enough. But I never imagined when I had my first conscious vision what it would mean for the future.

It started out undetectable. So the trees and plants were more red, so what? It was that time of year. A little more red than usual in the fall was nothing to worry about. I was in the car at the time, and as minutes passed it felt as though we were going faster, and the reds began melding together. Now the color was ridiculously scattered on the trees, including pines that, to my knowledge, _never_ turned red.

It didn't take me long to figure out that, after I'd voiced to my parents that everything was unusually red, I was the only one who saw quite that much of it. And I was the only one that realized how much it looked like the world was soaked in drying blood.

For the most split of seconds, my eyes drifted to a pine tree as we passed it, and instantly my gaze slipped past the red tint and to three dark shapes within it—bodies, hanging from the tree like they were strung on invisible nooses. They were faceless, and I think in some ways that made it all the more horrifying. Feeling almost cowardly, my eyelids scrunched up and I found that I could not open them for quite some time afterward. When they did, the world had drained of all its red, the bodies and the tree were long gone, and I was able to dismiss it even though in the back of my mind I knew I'd just had a crude vision that warned me that three people who I knew or knew of were about to die.

Despite the fact that it was not often on my mind—as had I shoved it back as much as I could into the corner of my consciousness—I understood the vision as soon as I heard the phone ring. _Don't answer it, don't answer it_, my mind chanted, but my mother did. Her greeting was casual enough, and she was a few rooms away, so I couldn't hear the person on the other line despite my advanced hearing. I knew it was my brother all the same. My mother's voice cracked as she questioned whether whatever my brother had said was true, and then she began saying things like, "Oh my God, I'm so sorry!" as she started to cry.

Jason was dead. I had known it as soon as I heard the first ring and I knew by the second that this was the first of the three deaths. I was barely aware of my dad hugging me in comfort from behind, and I almost didn't notice the tears streaming down my face.

I was crying when Adam came home. So was he, but I could tell by the way he returned my hug that he didn't want anything to do with me or anyone else right then. Mom told me to find somewhere to go for the night to let Adam try and register the fact that his best friend was dead, killed in a car accident, and I wanted nothing more than to get out of that house. My mind didn't even have time to think about where to go before I had dialed Kaze's number and she was on her way.

I don't remember what I said to her when she got to my house, but I remember that I cried as soon as I saw her and hugged her.

I honestly don't remember ever being in her car driving back to her house. Not even the mildest fragment of it is left in my mind; I recall only when we arrived there, and when we were up in her room. I remember how comforting she was and how much I needed her. I remember how much I cried, and how she held me while I did and stroked my hair like a mother comforting a child. And I remember how broken my voice was when I told her that I had known about his death before it happened.

"I saw him _hanging_ from the fucking _tree_," I sobbed out, not bothering to try and control my tears. Keeping the volume of my voice low was hard enough. As my head dipped down, my eyes dropped from hers and my crying wracked my body, I felt Kaze wrap her arms around me and I leaned onto her. I cried for at least a half hour beyond that which, aside from any tears I'd given from Hiei-related things, was a long time for me.

We headed for the cornfield out back of Kaze's house not long after I had calmed down, and she helped cheer me up and return my mood to normal, or at least semi-normal. Normal enough that I could act like nothing was wrong for the most part. She later told me that she had never seen me so broken up and fragile in her life.

* * *

My tears were Jason's only in those next few days. I hardly had time to think of Hiei between my fits of sorrow, but when I did it made me sob all the harder. The fact that he was not there to comfort me and give me the release I needed weighed heavily on my shoulders.

It was during one of these times, at night while I was home alone and curled in the smallest ball I could manage that I sensed him for the first time in a few weeks. I felt none of the paranoia I had when he had first tried to return, and I didn't try to shoo him out when I heard his footsteps on my floor.

He came over to my bedside, and when I opened my eyes, I could barely make out the blurry image of his boots when I stared at the floor. I think my lack of resistance was mainly due to the fact that I was crying too hard to care.

"Let me stay." It wasn't a command; his tone lacked anything that even hinted at one. Rather, it was almost like a plea.

I would have been able to say 'no' if I'd listened to my other vision, if I had thought to the future. But right then, I could only focus on the present, the fact that he was there with me again and that he was too important to me to live without, even if I had thought about it then and realized that way of thinking didn't make sense. I couldn't even say 'okay' or 'yes', I could only nod through my tears and turn to him, grabbing him tightly, squeezing my eyes shut as I embraced him.

As I felt the achingly familiar touch of his arms around my back, returning the embrace as I clung to him tightly, I think for the first time in a very long while I was torn between crying and laughing. Hiei had returned to me, and whether he liked it or not, it'd be a very, very long time before I was willing to let go of him.

* * *

**Authoress's Note:** Jason Wilcox was a real person and was indeed my brother's best friend. I remember the day I found out that he died all too well and it was simple for me to write about it, however odd it may seem to be doing so in a fanfiction. Rest in Peace, Jason.

Also, please note that **Tears of the Sun may be going on hiatus**. I say might only because perhaps inspiration will hit me and I'll get the next chapter done sooner than I think I'll be able to right now. I currently want to devote my fanfiction-writing time to rewriting Voices of the Lost Realm (Which so very badly needs a revamp) rather than writing Tears of the Sun. I'm sure anyone who reads this fanfiction is used to waiting a while for the next chapters anyhow, right?


	34. The Return

**Authoress's Note:** Sorry for the long break, though it didn't end up lasting as long as I thought. I decided I wouldn't update until I finished the rewrite of the first Voices of the Lost Realm book—which, by the way, I did end up finishing. Check it out once you get the time, if you're interested. Anywho, hopefully this chapter it more up to my previous standards—I haven't liked many of the other recent chapters as of late.

**Disclaimer:** Neither Hiei or YuYu Hakusho are mine.

**Claimer:** Chichiro and Ketsue are mine, Kaze is BritKit, Aria is FoxWitch. While not all the characters are mine, all writing, storylines and concepts in this fanfiction (Save any YYH references) are. This includes Nirvana, Spike, all shadowcats, the shadowcat species, Escque, Mahdaegrahs/entities, scorpios etcetera.

* * *

And so the days passed, slipping away behind me as though they were never there. School didn't hold nearly any thought in my mind; my family, aside from my grieving brother, ceased to be my instant concern.

Hiei and I spoke little, surprising enough to me as it happened to be. Our conversations were short when we did have them, and most of the time I found an excuse to murmur a teary-eyed, "I missed you," that he always wanted me to repeat, and I told him—reminding him not to be stupid—that I could not make myself any more audible and to use his jagan like he always had if he wanted to know what I'd said.

In the time immediately after he arrived back, his strange, newfound kindness from the night he came back disappeared; rather, he was bitter toward me for a good few weeks, as though he thought I'd wronged him by sending him away. He did not hide it well, either, and I doubt he tried to. However, only one instance stated blatantly how angry the whole incident had made him, which I was unsure whether to consider hurtful or amusing, seeing as how he'd wanted to return so bad.

I had been on my way to a babysitting job (I took it only because I did not want to seem unreliable and, should I ever regain my vigor for trying to make it in the human world, I wanted little jobs like this one open to me.), sitting in the passenger seat beside my mother. Hiei was trailing us a short ways back, following through the trees. Unlike before his leaving, we did not speak to one another as the car was moving along, not until it had to stop at a red light.

_I can't stop here_, he'd told me telepathically. _Too many people. I'd easily be spotted._ Before I could even respond with an, 'understandable,' he continued, _Which way are you going?_

The human child I was on my way to baby-sit had moved recently, and I had no idea where he lived now, and so I had replied honestly, _I don't know._

Though not entirely surprising, his response irked and half-started me. _Sure you aren't just trying to get rid of me?_

_I couldn't even if I did want to,_ I said back, and even though my mental tone was more controlled than my spoken one, I still sounded tangibly annoyed. _Which I don't._

_...Hn._

_So just continue ahead. Not like you can't find your way back to the car if you go ahead in the wrong direction._

There had been only silence lacking even so much as a 'hn' after my words.

Our short drift from one another thankfully did not last long. As my fear over his being near ebbed and I returned to my former mindset (Though noticeably more paranoid), he relaxed from his bitterness and seemed to forgive my desperate attempts to change the vision I'd had. For a short time, I figured that I should wait and hope it would define itself—I knew too little of the event to try to effectively alter it.

* * *

A sigh spilled my lips as I sat back against my windowsill, finding it incredibly uncomfortable on my shoulder blades but not possessing enough drive to shift my position. The short musical interlude of _Imaginary_—an Evanescence song that I had learned to listen to quite often thanks to Kaze's extreme like of it—ended and I began to hum along with the lyrics again, quietly.

Hiei was nearby, but not outside my house in the tree or on the roof like usual; he had been out fighting the Makaian soldiers for a few hours, now. Lately, I'd been so unmotivated to fight with him (Just in the hope to change the future by being absent at minor battles such as those he'd fought recently) that I had not been in a battle against the Escque or demons since before Hiei had returned. I was slowly becoming used to forcing down my separation anxiety, seeing as how whether or not I had motivation enough to fight, he still had to.

"Ketsue."

His voice at the window hardly startled me. My reaction to sudden noises and such had dramatically calmed since I'd met Hiei and I rarely jumped at their unexpectedness any longer. His monotone greeting of my name still brought a smile to my face. "Hey, Hiei." I didn't turn to face him and continued to hum after I'd responded.

"Turn that off, will you?"

I blinked my confusion in silence before I replied with a surprised, "What?" He never told me to turn off Evanescence—he had always seemed to have a certain fondness for her music. "Why?"

But I sensed him move to the roof, and when no telepathic message gave me an answer to my questions, I realized he had no intention of supplying one. Curious, I stood and reached for the TV controller set on the covers of my bed, pressing 'Stop' and then pivoting to take the screen off my window.

I was in my human form, a thing I hated having to deal with. Thus, it was hard for me to gain footing on the branches of the tree outside my window, and I thought more than a couple of times that I'd kill myself trying to get onto the roof. I succeeded in my attempt after far longer than it should have taken me, sporting only little scratches from my own clumsiness, and I yanked myself onto the roof to join Hiei.

"Okay, what's up with you?" I asked as I sat next to where he was standing, looking out across my neighbors' yards and to the woods beyond. "You seem more mopey than usual."

"You're one to talk," was his seemingly automatic comeback. I don't think he'd even realized he had said it with a snippy tone, as he simply continued, "I'm not moping."

"Didn't say you were," I muttered. "You're being mope-_y_. There's a difference."

"Is there." There was no interest in his tone, not that I was surprised.

"Yyyeah. But you still haven't answered me."

"I did. I'm not being mopey."

I felt the corners of my lips twitch with amusement at hearing him use 'mopey'. For whatever odd reason, it always seemed humorous to me when he echoed one of the terms I used that wasn't a real word; perhaps it was just that I knew that if he had not heard me say it first, it would not have occurred to him to use it. "Yeah, you are. But if you aren't gonna admit it, I'm not gonna try to make you. How's this: What's up? And why'd you tell me to turn off my Evanescence?"

He stuck out a bundle that I had not realized he'd been holding, not averting his gaze to look at me. "Happy birthday."

I blinked, taking it with a stunned smile. The fact that it was a couple of months late because of how long he'd been gone didn't even cross my mind. "Uh…thanks!"

"It's just so you'd stop asking when I would get you something," he muttered, without true venom.

I cocked my head at him, giving him a strange look. "But I only asked once, and I haven't—"

"Just open it," he interrupted flatly, and when I picked up on the fact that he was still avoiding my eyes, I realized how childish he was acting.

_Flustered over giving me a gift, is he?_ I wondered to myself. _Why, Hiei, how unlike you._ I found a certain charm in it, but without further adieu, I untied the rope about the small pack.

From within the wrinkles of the cloth about the gift I withdrew a small bead on the end of a chain—no, not a bead. On further inspection, I realized it was some sort of perfectly round jewel, surprisingly heavy for its small size. It was probably just under a centimeter in diameter, and though on first glance it could have appeared perfectly jet black, not unlike a dark opal, I noticed that there were also small red swirls wrapping about it almost like fire was licking from within it. Staring at it a long moment, mystified, I found myself overcome by something quite similar to the feeling of loss, a sense of déjà vu, and then suddenly a wave of happiness.

"...Wow," I whispered, breathless. "It's—" I could not find words for it. I hardly felt like looking away from something so gorgeous, but I successfully tore my eyes away from it to focus on Hiei. "Thank you!" I managed, the stunned grin from when I had first been presented with it upon my face once again.

Offering me only a swift, fleeting glance, he just uttered a low, "Hn," and shifted his position the smallest bit.

I felt the grin on my face change to one of amusement, and I looked away from him before he could catch it. My eyes caught the gem at the end of the necklace again, and I tried to figure out exactly what it was. Couldn't have been from the human plane, I had recognized at first glance, but it honestly hadn't occurred to me before then that demon world would probably have other kinds of jewels and minerals to mine. Still, why would demons bother to mine them? Surely not many wore such jewelry.

An odd thought came to me, then. It had a startling resemblance to a darkened version of the Hiruiseki tear gems that ice apparitions cried in the YuYu Hakusho anime. Suppose Hiei had the same but altered ability…? But he certainly wouldn't cry just to give me a gift, that much was obvious. It felt like it _meant_ something, though, and so I asked, "So, does this have some kind of significance?"

"You don't like it?" was his responding question, though his expression didn't shift when he asked it.

"No, no, that's not what I meant!" I replied quickly. "Of course I love it, you jerk—don't act like you didn't know that."

I thought I saw the hint of a smirk at the corner of his mouth, but then he turned his face away from my sight momentarily with another light, "Hn."

My eyes drifted then to the chain about his neck—the little vile, less than an inch long, that held a sort of sutra quite like my Ofuda and one that had a similar effect. I hadn't even realized my mouth was open before my lips were forming his name. "Hiei—" I cut off before I had the chance to ask the question that was at the front of my mind. He had glanced back at me expectantly, however, and I felt obligated to finish what I'd started. "Why did you…I mean, what's with the necklace?" I realized how it sounded, and immediately continued, "Yours, that is. The one around your neck that you said was kind of like the Ofuda—why did you make it?"

He watched me intently for a long moment before he shrugged in an especially casual manner, turning and sitting where he had previously been standing. His gaze had wandered again, and I wondered exactly what he was staring at.

"Do you even realize how strong it had gotten?" he asked, and I figured easily enough that by 'it' he meant my Ofuda. "When Murtur injured me the last time, I wasn't even _aware_ of it. Do you know how dangerous it would have been for me to be separated from you and not be able to feel pain? I may not have been able to know during a battle whether you were being injured or not."

"Me…? But you said—"

"Whether or not you were taking _my_ injuries," he elaborated flatly.

"…Ah." I didn't fancy the effects of his sutra too much, to be honest. Even still, I felt like a bratty kid when I truly considered the fact that it bothered me—mine had the same and stronger effects, and I knew already that Hiei wasn't too fond of my Ofuda. Even still, "So, now that we're not separated anymore, can you…y'know, disengage your Ofuda?"

"It's not an Ofuda," he muttered back, "but I will disengage both."

It wasn't what I had intended, but I knew that thanks to Hiei's personality, he wouldn't disengage his own until I had agreed to allow him to also disengage mine. Still, the last time he had tried it had been hard for him because it had gotten stronger… "I bet that necklace of yours can do that by itself, can't it?" I wondered aloud, suddenly. To be honest, I hadn't even considered it until I had spoken it, almost as though Chichiro had come out of her forced dormancy to comment. "Cancel the effects of mine, that is."

His crimson gaze swept over me for a short moment, making my heart leap; there were just some moments when I was reminded simply by his eyes how amazing it was that he was here with me. "Yeah." He looked to the black roof tiles and then murmured to me as he began to watch the distance once again, "You should go get some sleep. You have to go to school tomorrow, don't you?"

The comment disappointed me somehow, but I knew he was right and nodded in agreement. It was getting late and I generally had a hard time falling asleep anyhow. "Goodnight," I told him quietly, standing and moving slowly to the side of the roof, watching my footwork closely to be sure I wouldn't trip and send myself tumbling into the side yard.

As I lowered myself into my room and lifted the screen from where it was laying against the storage trunk beneath my windowsill, I watched Hiei settle onto his usual branch and cross his arms. His eyes slid shut casually as though he intended to sleep as well, but I knew—mainly thanks to his preoccupation with the city not long ago, but also because of my own instincts—that he intended to leave once I was asleep and battle more. "Be careful tonight, okay?"

He didn't seem surprised I knew, and I had to wonder why he was even going to wait to leave. "Hn."

Feeling an annoying prickle of guilt that I wasn't going with him, I tried to shove the thought from my mind and locked my screen into place, heading for my bed and laying down. Just before I slipped into sleep, I heard Hiei stand outside ever so quietly, and I sensed him leave.

That night I dreamt about fighting alongside him once again, and I knew when I woke up that it was time I joined him again, no matter what the upcoming months would hold. I needed to be with him now, and worry about the future when it arrived.

* * *

The house was empty when I arrived home from school the next afternoon, dropping my massive backpack on the ground rather unceremoniously. I was unsure if I should marvel or curl my lip at how loudly it slammed to the hardwood floor.

"You here, Hiei?" I called, unafraid of my brother being home before he was expected and accidentally overhearing me; he was going somewhere with Tena that day, though that was all I knew.

_Too lazy to try and sense me, are you?_ he responded telepathically.

_I'll take that as a yes,_ I replied flatly. _Where are you?_

"You must be getting rusty, Ketsue," I heard him say behind me as I was sitting in my computer chair in the study. "All these weeks of not fighting have been dulling your senses considerably."

"It's just this stupid human form," I told him irritably, laying against the back of the seat and spinning to face him. "Pretty much as useful as a normal human's body."

"Hn." He was standing just inside the doorway when he said it, but directly afterward, he fished through his pocket and withdrew an oddly familiar-looking cellular phone. He thrust my cell at me, muttering, "Keep it with you."

I hadn't given the little device a single thought in months. "What the hell for?"

"Just do it, will you?" he grumbled back, continuing on to explain, "Kurama programmed his number into your phone. Feel free to mess around with labels and ring tones and such. We weren't quite creative or inspired enough to do that."

"…Right." I took it from him finally, turning it to the side and examining it for no particular reason for a moment before I asked, "How did you even know I _had_ a cell phone, let alone know that I'd want you to put in Kurama's number?" At Hiei's flat look, my eyes flickered to his brow and his bandanna, and then I muttered, "You know what? Ignore that. It's for the better."

"Hn."

Although it made me feel rather like a dork, I considered that he may have done it because Kurama would call me with "missions" if Hiei wasn't around. It was the first time in a while that I'd considered how much like a spirit detective I had become these last few months, though as of late I hadn't really been acting like it.

As I flipped through the ring tones quickly, reading only their names and not slowing to listen to them, I felt a devious grin slide along my lips. "I have the perfect ring tone for this," I told Hiei, pressing the button sporting a little green phone on it so that my cell would accept the ring tone for whenever Kurama called. The highlighted ring tone read, 'Dammit,' a song by Blink-182; the song had very little to do with our work, but the title seemed to match well enough and served to amuse me greatly.

"What's that?" he asked disinterestedly.

I just smirked. "You'll see." And then, as the thought came to me, I continued, "And you guys aren't allowed to call me during school, okay?"

As if to lecture me about my priorities, Hiei began, "I hardly think—"

"Just promise me, okay?" I interrupted. "I don't want to have a lot of explaining to do and I don't want you to have to use your jagan on the teachers and everyone else at the school." Recalling the personalities of the others on our 'team', I went on, "Oh, and make sure Yusuke'n the others know that, too, 'kay?"

"Hn."

It was good enough for me.

* * *

"How are you feeling?"

It was an odd question coming from Kaze, seeing as how she so rarely asked it. So, rather than being straight forward, my response was, "What's that supposed to mean?"

She gave me an incredulous look from where she was walking beside me, her backpack slung over her shoulders and her MP3 player earphones hanging around her neck but not connected to her ears. "It means how it sounds, Hi-Chan, what do you think? Didn't you say Chichiro wounded you pretty bad in your battle?"

It was another thing, like the cell phone, I hadn't given much thought to as of late. "And you care why…? That was so long ago."

"Yeah, but you can't be healed yet if it was as bad as you made it sound."

There was a certain kind of scorn in her tone, and it crossed my mind that she thought I had been exaggerating. I didn't voice the fact that her wording was rather rude, seeing as how I wasn't always the nicest person to her either, and instead replied, "I'm a demon, Kaze. It's already gone."

"Oh." The scorn had been momentary. She was back to her air-headed tone, now, one that advertised so clearly that her mind was always on things other than the present. I could never tell if it gave her a childlike or ethereal sense. "Must be nice to be a demon."

I glanced sideways at her, debating on answering with my first thought—_Yeah, nice until you're stabbed the first couple of times_—or with my sensible one, which I chose. "I guess so."

We were walking back to my house from school, as Kaze was going to spend the night—it was Friday.

Kaze and I were in the middle of a rather heated discussion about whether demons were born awesome or had to train to be awesome when we entered the front door. It had been spurred when I bragged (A bad habit of mine from back then which has since been quelled some.) about how high I could jump now, and she had commented with no snide edge intended, '_Well, you're a demon—You _should_ be able to do that._' Of course I corrected her that it was not simply natural to be able to leap twenty feet into the air and that demons had to train hard to be able to do the things she thought they were born with the ability to do.

By the time we made it upstairs, she had relented and already forgotten about the discussion, asking me to put on some music or turn on some anime. "In a minute," I told her. "First, look at this."

Her eyes widened when I handed her my cell phone, Kurama's number highlighted on my contacts list. "You have Kurama's _number_?" The wonder had faded from her voice when she continued quite like my own response, "What for?"

"Doesn't matter what for," I replied.

"So you know Kurama, too?" And by 'too' I figured she meant the fact that Hiei hung around my house a lot. It gave me a sense of freedom to have someone else know about him being there and not have to hide it from them.

A devious grin came to my face when I recognized the note of envy in her words. "I could introduce you, if Hiei lets me."

_And I won't,_ he told me telepathically, sounding exasperated.

My grin widened and I allowed myself a snicker at that. _Oh well._

"What?" came Kaze's voice next to me, and when I turned to her, she was watching me. "What did he say?"

It was amazing to me how easily she could see through when he was talking to me, though I supposed I was rather bad at hiding my reactions when I didn't feel I had to. "He said no."

"Oh, well," she echoed my earlier thought, shrugging. "Hiei works fine for me, even if I've never really met the guy."

"You have!" I protested chidingly.

"Yeah, through _you_," she replied flatly.

"But that's still meeting him."

She watched me silently for a moment, an expression matching her flat tone upon her face. "…Hi-Chan, you're hopeless."

I smirked. "Don't I know it."

It was later in the day when I became restless that I suggested going outside to Kaze. Always up for a good walk, she agreed happily, and we made our way to the little 'park' down Jefferson Road a short ways. Really, it was just a tiny amount of free land around a manmade pond, and nothing spectacular. I still enjoyed it greatly, and pointing out to Kaze where Hiei was off in the distance, watching us but still not allowing me to show him off to Kaze.

Silence fell between us when Hiei left abruptly, probably because a rift was open nearby. Being that I was in my human form, my senses only alerted me to the fact mildly and without any sense of urgency. Thus, I didn't ask him to distract Kaze and my family so that I could come along.

"So he's back, is he?" Kaze asked on the way back to my house.

"Yeah." I had confessed to Kaze after Jason's death that Hiei had also left recently. "I guess I forgot to mention—" But I cut off as an eerily familiar energy came from nearby, so close I felt I could reach out and touch the being it was wafting from. When the tall grass of the field alongside the road bristled a bit as though something was moving ever-so-slowly through it, I realized that the Escque I sensed was actually nearly as close as it had seemed, and moved Kaze to the other side of me and told her to hurry up.

"What is it, Hi-Chan?" she asked, for although I knew she had seen the grasses move as well, I figured she hadn't thought anything of it.

"Y'know that thing from my shower the night Hiei arrived?" I asked her quickly. "I think one of 'em is following us. So I'd appreciate it if we could move a little faster, okay?" As she happily obliged to that, I muttered, "And I told you not to call me—"

I stopped mid-sentence as I heard the familiar 'Dammit' Blink 182 ring tone go off, and my cell phone vibrated in my pocket. I put up a finger to Kaze to say 'one minute', and I clicked the small green button, bringing the phone to my ear. "Kurama?" I casually flicked a train of energy toward the Escque trailing us, with as little pizzazz as possible so that Kaze would not notice what I was doing.

"Yes, Ketsue, it's me. There's a rather larger rift opening now, and I believe you've had a long enough 'leave of absence', if you will. Care to assist us?"

My eyes widened lightly. If they needed my help, it must have been pretty serious. "Damn it, I was enjoying my vacation," I growled in what I realized was a rather Yusuke-like way. "How large?" The sensed that the Makaian creature that had been following us had disintegrated, and I stopped dispensing the energy from my fingertips.

"Probably the biggest yet," he told me so casually that I felt like finding a way to reach through the receiver to smack him.

"Well, why hasn't Hiei shown up?" I decided upon asking instead. "He usually tells me so you don't have to call." Much more than usually, actually; it was the first time Kurama had _ever_ called me.

There was a pause on the other line, and then Kurama spoke again, sounding mildly annoyed and slightly dreading. "Yes, well, he claimed that if you needed to be alerted to the rift and you couldn't sense it, you were—and I quote—'too weak to be of any use.' He refused to—"

"He _what_?!" I spat, and I saw Kaze flinch away from me visibly from the corner of my eye. "Put that damned Jaganshi on, _now_!"

While there was silence, I felt Kaze's eyes on me and I glared over at her with unintentional coldness. "What?"

"What language was that?"

"Eh?"

"You weren't speaking English, stupid," she explained flatly, though there was so little venom in her voice when she said 'stupid' that one could assume it was a pet name. "All I caught was 'Kurama', 'Hiei', 'Jaganshi', and then 'nani', I think, but the rest didn't sound like Japanese."

"Demon, then." I replied, shrugging. "I don't know. I can never tell what language I'm speaking anymore."

"The only reason I'm not incinerating you now where you stand is because Kurama insisted I attempt to be civilized," came a snide, sexy familiar voice on the phone, and I twitched. I was too pissed to even realize how funny the thought of Hiei on a cell phone was.

"You _jerk_!" I shouted into the phone, hoping with a passion that it stung Hiei's ears. I paid attention to what I was saying then, and sure enough it was demon ("Der_ kermbies!_"), not English or Japanese. "What's all this about you thinking I'm useless if I can't sense this rift?"

"Plainly, if you can't feel something that large you're of no use."

I growled. "Why you arrogant son of a—"

"Hey, Ketsue?" spoke up my human world friend from beside me.

I shifted my glare to Kaze. "What?"

"I think I'm hearing some of those swear words you taught me—what's going on?"

I had told Kaze how to speak a few Kaoorish—Aletta's language—profanities last year before Hiei had arrived. I supposed that either the demonic tongue didn't have any swear words and I had to substitute, or I was switching back and forth between languages as the fire demon had once told me that I did occasionally. "Hiei's an ass, that's what's going on."

"You do realize the phone is still next to your mouth, don't you?" came the voice of the accused Jaganshi.

"Of course I do, but it's not like _we're_ speaking English, so quit paying attention to what I say when I _am_ speaking English!"

I'm fairly sure I head a sigh, and then there was an audible clicking noise. I blinked, then brought the phone from my ear and looked at the screen. 'Call Ended: 5:34 PM.' I twitched. "How—AUGH! Fucking Jaganshi!"

Kaze winced at my raised voice. "He hung up on you, didn't he?"

"Of course. Jerk." I turned to Kaze. "And no, I didn't mean you were a jerk. Anyways, I have to go. The ass holes of spirit world have decided they need my help again. Think you can cover for me?"

Kaze rolled her eyes. "Honestly, Hi-Ch—" I gave her a fierce glare and she restarted. "—er, Ketsue-Chan, are we ever going to actually get a chance to get together for more than a few minutes?"

We hadn't hung out honestly since Jason died, and had only passed each other in the school hallways before now. "If these jerks ever stop calling me, yeah, sure," I called as I set off at a run down the street, trying hard to push down my guilt. "But not right now, we can't." I transformed mid-run, too annoyed to care if any humans saw me. "I promise I'll be back soon! And hurry back to my house!"

I thought I heard her call, "Be careful!" from behind me, but my speed had picked up to a pace impossible for any human and she was already fading from sound range. As my feet carried me toward where I could now sense the immense rift, I felt as magnificent and free as I had the first time Hiei had forced my body to transform, before my training and before I had gotten myself involved in the demon world war. It had been far too long since I'd been a true demon.

My pleasant run was interrupted by Hiei's voice in my mind. _Follow my energy and not the rift; you and I have to meet with Kurama. We have more important things to do than fight the insolents spilling the rift right now._

I blinked as I ran, confused by that comment. Kurama had made the rift sound so urgent… _You're already with Kurama,_ I told him rather than asking what he meant. _So obviously you're just waiting for me to get there. Why not start without me?_

_Obviously if we're forcing you back into battling, it's important that you're here to aid us,_ he replied irritably. _It will be explained when you get here._

_Fine, fine._ I located Hiei's energy signal and averted my course for him, away from the rift and toward the city.

I was huffing by the time I got to the building I had sensed Hiei in, and I had to lean over and support myself by placing my hands just above my knees to catch my breath. _Been way too long since I did this sort of stuff_, I thought to myself once again, though I had never felt any kind of out of shape in my demon form and it was new to me. Not to say I was very out of shape in that form—I had run a good several miles at the same pace impossible for any human, even an Olympic sprinter, without getting tired until the last couple of minutes.

I decided that shifting back to my human form for a short while would give my demonic energy a rest and time to recover, which I figured it'd need if the battle we were about to enter was going to be anything like the past ones. I opened the metal door to the building and entered, following a now fainter-seeming energy signal from Hiei, heading down a hallway toward a room with its door slightly cracked open. My hand was extended to open said door when Kurama's voice stopped me, asking a rather odd question: "Did you hear about the killing?"

My heart jumped, and I hesitated outside the door, suddenly glad I was in my human form. With any luck, they wouldn't have noticed my energy yet, or they would at least think I was farther away than I was. Was he talking about the human _I_ had killed, Rex…?

Hiei hadn't responded yet, and Kurama elaborated. "The human. Male, 27. He was slaughtered some time ago, and I believe the simile the investigators used was 'like livestock in a meat factory'."

I felt my heart jolt again. _Investigators…?_ My attention was something beyond riveted now, yet I didn't dare take a step closer to the room for fear I'd give my position away with sound.

"They say his throat was slit and bled nearly dry, but the oddest thing was that the fatal slash on his neck appeared to be a bite mark," the fox demon within the room was continuing. "The teeth marks were hard to mold, because they were dragged upward without pattern. It actually made the humans consider that it was the work of a rabid animal for a while, but even when they got a hold of the few molds they could salvage, they didn't match a single species on record. Neither did the DNA in the saliva. Nor," he said in a softer, finalizing tone, "did the blood."

The memory of Rex's bullet grazing my cheek just seconds before I killed him flashed through my mind.

I heard Kurama shift his position, probably leaning back against something. "It was only natural to assume it was a rogue demon, perhaps one that chose to ignore Makaian law and enter the human world."

"Let me guess," came a familiar voice in response. Hiei's words were spoken evenly, which surprised me for some reason, but I could hear that he was talking through clenched teeth. "The humans also realized how similar to a human pallet the molds were, which furthered your suspicions about it being a demon."

Outside the room, I guessed as I listened that Kurama had probably followed the investigation for a while, now, and that was why he was so late mentioning it. We had seen him enough times since it happened for him to have brought it up by now, otherwise.

"With your unmatched thievery skills and your similarly unmatched curiosity, you decided to go and steal the file and the samples that they had collected and you used one of your convenient plant pollens to make every human forget what had happened—the investigators, the clean up crew, the pathologist...all of them. Save, perhaps, any there at the time the human was killed, since you had no way of finding them. The humans had no suspects, correct? So there couldn't have been filed witnesses." His voice sounded like a narration of a story, and by Kurama's silence, he was doing it perfectly.

"You took the saliva and blood to Koenma, who you were surprised to find was horrified at the results, but he withheld them from you even though you had been the one to request them." He paused a moment, took in a small breath and muttered, "But of course, you're not to be stopped by security like Koenma's—you proved that in the past stealing from Enma's vault." Hiei was back on track in the next moment. "Whatever you used to check the DNA noted an extreme similarity to Chichiro's, though the species was somehow different—a demon in hidden human form. Then you compared it with Ketsue's, finding it to be near exact, but it wasn't. It was barely changed, like when you transform into Yoko in this human body rather than your original form. And thus you assumed who it had been, which ultimately led you here and to the conclusion that it was Ketsue." There was a pause. "Am I right?"

"That was a long guess. But it was accurate." Silence a moment, and then, "Hiei, what happened?"

"He pissed her off. Her demon blood took over, and she killed him. It was that simple."

"And the other human?" Kurama asked finally, after a long stretch of wordlessness. "What about him? What drove him to shoot her, and why did you break spirit world's law and dispatch of him as well? You wouldn't have resorted to killing a human unless you had severe reasoning to do so."

"Any human that harms Ketsue deserves to die," Hiei spat with a venomous vehemence that stunned me.

"Hiei?" Kurama voiced again. "You haven't answered my other question."

"…He was there when Ketsue killed the other human. But as with all of their kind, he was easily paralyzed by fear, but the next time he saw her he seemed to've regained his cool. And he…shot her." The last two words were said softer than the rest of the sentence, as if it hurt him to speak them.

There was a long silence, and I was tempted to go in, but then Kurama spoke again. "Is that the only human she's killed?"

Hiei didn't reply and I didn't hear him nod or shake his head, though I had no idea why—I had not killed another human, so he could have answered quite easily.

Not sounding at all impatient, Kurama tried again, "What is it, Hiei? Did she—"

"I've broken her," the fire demon interrupted, quoting what he had told me at the scene where I had killed the human. I hated myself suddenly when I heard him say it and when I recognized the same hurt tone in Hiei's voice from when he had said it to me. "If I hadn't involved her in this…"

"Did you really expect to keep her innocent, Hiei? It was inevitable." I felt Kurama's eyes shift toward the door. "Come in, Ketsue."

I winced and regained stature before going in.

"Did you hear any of that?" he asked me plainly, watching me intently as if to gage my expression.

"Any of what?" I replied, using my I'm-only-slightly-interested-but-I'll-hurt-you-if-you-don't-tell-me-anyway face to feign innocence.

"Never mind."

As he began to explain the situation, I restrained a sigh of relief. I knew Hiei would be able to read my thoughts later on and find that I had heard the conversation, but for then at least they would believe that I remained clueless to it.

Did Hiei really still feel guilty for what happened? It was me who had killed Rex, but it seemed almost as though he felt the event more strongly than I did (Though certainly not with the same reaction he would have had if he had killed Rex himself.). I had almost completely forgotten it by now, as well. Perhaps that's why it bothered him so much.

"As you may have guessed, Ketsue," Kurama was saying, "Nirvana is the one in control of this rift, which is why its size is so much more impressive than the other ones as of late." I didn't interrupt to remind him that I hadn't seen _any_ rift lately, and allowed him to continue. "Yusuke located her and a few of her higher-level comrades not long ago in the human world, but you and Hiei will be the ones dealing with her."

Dread bit at me when I heard the ram demoness's name. I had not seen her since the Dark Tournament, and I was glad of it. It was only to be expected that I'd be seeing more of her, however, since she was Atenre's ally and, as Hiei had said, Atenre was making his return.

"Alright," I answered levelly, turning to Hiei. "Care to lead the way?"

He was beside me in an instant, countering with, "Care to transform?"

I had forgotten that I'd shifted back to my human form. For some reason, I was embarrassed that Kurama had seen it, as though I was ashamed that I even had a human form. He was currently in his own human form, so I had little grounds to stand on with that mindset. "Sure." I did so, then felt Hiei's arms knock my legs from beneath me as he lifted me into the usual bridal-style position he had always carried me in before. It had been so long since he'd carried me…

"It'll be faster if I carry you," he told me as though he honestly thought I'd protest.

"Alright."

I was barely aware that we had begun moving before we were outside the building and soaring over my city like we had before, and suddenly I was trembling for no reason at all, shaking all over and feeling as though a fresh adrenaline rush was running through my veins and egging me on to do _something._ What that something was, I had no idea, but with every fiber of my being, I felt like I _had_ to do it or I'd burst.

"It really has been far too long since you last fought," Hiei murmured to me. "I've never seen you so bloodthirsty before a fight even began."

"…Bloodthirsty?" Yeah, I guess that _was_ what the word for my feeling. I wanted to massacre a bunch of demons—No, I wanted to massacre _her_, the one demon who had specifically wronged me.

Hiei hadn't responded to my echoed reply, so I figured he had guessed that I'd acknowledged that he had been right.

Suddenly I realized that we were heading for the rift—the thing Hiei had told me _not_ to do—and I felt my eyes become wide as I looked upward toward the tear in the sky. It really _was_ enormous—larger than I could recall a rift being in the past. Yet, there were no demons spilling from it that I could see. Either they were waiting for something, or the fissure between worlds had already leaked enough demons for the invasion to progress "nicely".

I had not connected the fact that Hiei likely intended to enter the rift until he began heading for the higher buildings near it, and for some reason I felt nervous knowing that. I had entered a rift before, but it was only once. "Are we—?"

But he cut me off by explaining, "There are rift-tears near it. We won't be entering the rift."

As usual, he had recognized the intent of my question before I could ask, and what he said worked well enough for me. Still, why would we be heading for a rift-tear…?

We passed through it uneventfully. For once, we did not have long to fall from the opposite side, and Hiei's feet touched down on the branches of a tree less than ten feet from the base of the rift-tear. He continued on from there, heading in what looked like the direction of another set of rift-tears in the distance.

"You're quiet," I heard him notice.

I blinked up at him, then shrugged and examined the toes of my sneakers fixedly. "Not any more than usual, am I?" I asked him, not recalling ever being particularly talkative when we were heading for a battle site, although that perception of myself was likely incorrect.

"Well, you generally want to know where we're going," he replied, though it seemed only an observation and he still didn't tell me where exactly we were headed.

I figured just to shake things up, I wouldn't ask. Instead, I allowed my eyes to drift to the forest of black trees about us and then to the sky. _This isn't demon world,_ I noticed simply from the calm, grayish-blue of the clouds. _Least not any part of it I've been to before._

"Ketsue!" he said to me suddenly, and though he offered nothing else, I recognized it as his way of telling me to get ready for something. Thus, when he released me, I wasn't too surprised and I was able to flip and catch myself on a thicker branch of the tree below us. Casting a quick glance above me, I watched as an entity—which had appeared seemingly from nowhere—crashed against Hiei's sword. As its massive head drew back from where it had rammed onto his katana and slashed open its muzzle, it let out an ear-splitting screech that made goose bumps pop up along my arm. I shivered lightly and barely noticed the small smirk along my lips—I had actually _missed_ that sound.

Summoning my energy sword, feeling my heart pounding in anticipation for the battle, I pushed off the tree limb and sailed for the entity. It was not a particularly fast one, for the blade pierced into the creature's neck easily enough, but it was also not a particularly weak one. Its tail whipped around and slammed into me, casting me aside as though it was merely swatting away a fly.

My reflexes, though faltering from previous simply from my lack of experience as of late, had not become altogether _too_ horrid, so it seemed. I was able to spin midair so that my feet hit the trunk of the tree I had been sent flying at, and I had been able to reach out quickly and snag the nearest branch with my arm. The faltering was present, however, when I was barely able to evade the next swing of the entity's enormous, worm-like body as it crashed into the tree I'd landed on. Hardly with enough time to react, I had not aimed well for anything and found myself tumbling onto the ground below me.

_Are you hurt?_ Hiei's voice came in my mind, though not altogether too worried-sounding. Either he was back to being indifferent so quickly, or he had faith in my abilities. I had a rather hard time believing the latter.

_I'm fine_, I assured him quickly as I scrambled to my feet and assessed where the entity was. I could not see Hiei, however, even though the creature I had been dodging was no longer coming after me._ You?_

_Come, now, you know better than to ask,_ was his arrogant, though humored, response.

_Sure, sure._ I leapt into the air and kicked off the nearest tree, bouncing back and forth between two trunks to get to the treetops, as there were few limbs on the lower parts of the trees to jump onto or from. _Where are you?_

_There are more of them,_ he told me, his mental tone the slightest bit strained. He was fighting one of the others even as he spoke. _Worry about the first one for now. I'll come get you when I can._

I didn't bother replying with an, 'Okay,' however automatic it felt to do so—he didn't need me distracting him with nonsense if he was fighting multiple others, especially not when he had entrusted me to only a single entity. I could handle this one quite easily, however, no matter how far my reaction time had fallen.

Forming an energy ball into my palm, I threw it out toward the ugly, seemingly decaying entity before me and made my way for it in a single spring. In the split second before I landed on its back, I allowed myself a quick three-sixty look around, though my eyes fell on only the massacred corpses of two other entities, recently killed. _Where the hell is Hiei…?_

My feet touched down on the beast's flesh, and my focus returned to the task at hand. No sense worrying about Hiei now—I'd only be distracted, and it would hinder my ability to kill this creature.

Rapidly, my footfalls led me up the creature's spine and toward its turning skull, and just before it was able to face me entirely and clamp its horribly strong jaws down onto my much smaller body (I recalled the feeling of the last time that had happened all too well, though it had been months since the other entity had bitten me in the canyon.), I had my sword raised and sailing for its open maw.

_Though your mind hesitates now, it will not when we return to fighting. It will revert back to strike-and-kill, and you will no longer have second thoughts._

Even if I had no idea why the Mahdaegrah's words had drifted back to me then, my arm seemed unwilling to move for the briefest of seconds. The hesitation was short-lived, but it still forced me to abort my attack and dodge, using the tip of the entity's lunging muzzle to kick off. I realized afterward that during said kick-off, I could have still stabbed my sword into its upper jaw, but the opportunity was lost and I needed to reform my attack.

Suddenly, from far off, a louder, deeper screech sounded. It must have been from a far larger entity, for I could tell it was a long distance away, and yet its volume was nearly that of the one from earlier.

The entity before me threw its massive head to the side, ignoring me suddenly as it listened. There was more clarity and intelligence within its face right then than I had ever seen in an entity outside of the Mahdaegrahs, and suddenly I gathered why those words had come back to me—I was supposed to understand that, even if they seemed to fight blindly, more of the invading Makaian demons were intelligent than I had thought. Far more.

At the second screech from afar, the entity right near me dropped its own jaw and answered with a responsive scream, and I assumed its purpose was not unlike a wolf's howl, as it turned to head toward the other's call.

Left alone save for the corpses of the other demons, I realized I had little choice but to follow the retreating entity. It no longer seemed aware of me, so I doubted lingering attack intent, and I could not speak to Hiei because he could have been in the middle of battle and I could not risk injuring him over my own insecurity. Who said independence hurt once and a while? It wasn't as if he couldn't find me anyhow, as I had told him several days earlier, though this time it would have been if _I_ had gone the wrong way.

The entity was headed for another rift, so I gathered as I was trailing it. I didn't try to attack it—my curiosity restrained me. If I had killed it, I would not have discovered where it was going and why it had left so abruptly without second thought when the other summoned it.

I was not allowed to discover either of these things anyway, though, for before we had gotten very far I heard Hiei call down to me from the tree branches above, "Don't bother. Their business is not of our concern at the moment and they are not headed for the human realm."

I glanced up at him as I was running along the ground, and the flat '_I'm sure_' look in Hiei's eyes from where he was running along the branches some fifty feet above me made me slow and skid to a stop. "…Fine," I conceded irritably, disappointed I could no longer follow it. For a short time, Nirvana had drifted from my mind and the curiosity at the new complexity I saw in entities had snatched my focus and interest. "But I want to find out later, okay?"

"Hn." Hiei sprang from the edge of the limb he had stopped on, sailing downward with what I daresay was a certain kind of grace, landing beside me. "Come on—we have more important things to do."

And so we continued on for Nirvana's new stronghold, wherever that would be.

The next rift-tear we entered took us back to the human realm and into a city I did not recognize. The roof we had landed on gave us a view of a large, three-story building with spinning doors at the front that appeared to be newly built. The rest of the buildings around it were boarded up and broken down, unused. The structure before us did not have any sort of sign on it to tell what it was, though obviously it was in use, for there were electric lights shining from outside and inside it. And there were also the strong, demonic energy signals of some very familiar A-class demons emitting from within.

"Nirvana's in there…?" I wondered aloud. It seemed out of place for her—flamboyant enough in appearance, sure, but odd for a demoness bent on taking over the world.

Hiei set me down on the roof, which was one story higher than the building we were looking toward, and told me, "Ready yourself. I'm sure she will want to fight you."

"Believe me," I growled back, "the feeling's mutual." And mentally I added, _For once._ Looking toward him as I set a foot forward on the edge of the roof, I asked, "Shall we?"

When Hiei nodded, I faced forward again and kicked off the top of the building, sending myself toward the roof of the other, more modern structure. When my feet touched down onto solid stone, I made my way for the stairwell.

Once inside, I waited for Hiei before continuing on to make my way for Nirvana's energy signal.

"Don't bother hiding your energy," Hiei muttered to me when I considered it. "They know we're here, and they'll be waiting for us."

"Oh, goody," I replied, though I couldn't figure out if it was sarcasm or honest enthusiasm.

At the end of the third or fourth staircase, and once I had become sick enough of going down the stairs that I had scaled the entire last one in a single leap, I recognized that we were on the correct floor. Beyond the fact that I could sense Nirvana, the twenty-foot ceilings unique to only this floor—with massive double doors into the room she was in to match—hinted that this floor was her "hiding" place.

"Ketsue, you're alive!" was Nirvana's falsely warm greeting upon our entrance, and when she set forward for me I thought for a brief second she intended to embrace me for further emphasis on her sarcastic relief. But she stopped and summoned a whip-like weapon with little blades all along it instead, cracking it once in front of her for show only and then letting it coil on the floor before her as she loosely held the handle. "I'm so glad!"

Hiei walked a few feet before me, his initiative to be ahead enough to make me stop. He took a single step to the side so he was halfway in front of me, and for a moment I found myself blown away at how subtly sentimental the simple gesture was, but then I stepped forward myself and said, "No, I'll fight her."

He glanced back at me, seeming unafraid that Nirvana would attack while we spoke. The ram demoness held true to the assumption, oddly, and didn't move. She simply watched. "Don't be so quick to kill yourself," he told me flatly.

"I'm not," I growled back, the warmth I'd felt toward him from his protective action suddenly gone. "I will fight her, whether you like it or not."

"This is no time for your stubbornness."

"And this is no time for you to fight with me," I snarled back.

I could see by the look in Hiei's eyes that he knew arguing was futile. He did not seem particularly happy with the arrangement, but he also didn't seem overly against it either. "Are you sure you can take her?"

"Don't worry about it," I growled, glaring over at Nirvana. "This bitch is mine."

The smirk plastered on the ram demoness's large, diva lips widened into a mocking grin as she cooed, "Well, 'this bitch' is ready for you, silly girl."

"You'll regret that one," I hissed, and flew at her with my fist raised.

She stood perfectly still with that aggravating smirk on her face until just before my punch connected with her. In a split second, I found her behind me and twisting my arm painfully behind my back. I gave a small yelp at the initial shock of it, but after that I controlled my outcries easily enough—though not to say it didn't still hurt like a bitch.

"You didn't let me finish," Nirvana admonished in the kind of tone a cheery preschool teacher would have used, pressing my wrist against my back and twisting it the slightest bit tighter. "I was going to say, 'I'm ready, but unfortunately, so is my dearest mate.' He fights first." Then she released me, and as she headed for the other familiar-looking ram demon that had been identified as her mate, I spun around to find that she was wearing the same, irritating grin as before. "I'll await you after you've killed them, dearest," she told him, strapping the whip she'd held before—coiled—at her side before setting a long-nailed hand onto his shoulder as she passed.

By the sound of her voice, she honestly expected that we'd be killed—either that, or she wanted us to think so. It didn't make sense to me when she had always seemed to want to battle me, which she would have done if she thought we'd die anyhow; as well, we had beaten her in the dark tournament, and if she sent her mate out before her, he was likely simply a weaker guard so that she did not have to battle herself.

I tried to sense where she had disappeared to once she had left through the double doors, but being that I could not pick up any trace of her energy signal, I decided it wasn't worth it to try and follow. "Guess that means no fighting her today," I muttered to myself.

Oddly, there was the slightest hint in Hiei's expression that he was relieved at that fact. It didn't show enough for me to be sure that's what the glint in his gaze was, though, so I didn't linger on it. "That still leaves him," he noticed aloud, indicating the male ram demoness Nirvana had assigned to dispatching us. "I will take him."

"Sure." I didn't have any objection, that was for sure; I had no personal beefs with this demon. "Don't want any help?"

"Again—do you really need to ask?"

Before I could reply, the only other demon in the room—a scaly, reptilian demon built quite like Nirvana's mate—moved forward in a shot and grabbed me roughly from behind. He yanked my wrists toward him as Nirvana had and pressed my forearms against my spine with little gentleness. "Hey, let go of me!" I cried angrily, fighting against his grasp.

I began to summon an energy ball, but he wrenched my hand backward farther and twisted it at an unnatural and—to say the least—uncomfortable position. "Don't try anything funny. For every trick you try, I snap a finger."

"Why you—!" But he began to bend my finger backward painfully, and I lost a flinch.

"Give it a rest, Ketsue," I heard Hiei mutter, and irritatingly enough to me, there was no concern in his voice.

I glared at him coldly, then sighed, "Fine." My next words— "Not like Hiei can't handle him on his own, anyway" —were directed at the demon restraining me, though I wasn't able to turn and look at him. Instead, I focused my gaze ahead at Hiei, watching helplessly as his battle commenced and I was forced to simply observe from the sidelines.


	35. Capture

**Disclaimer:** Neither Hiei or YuYu Hakusho are mine.

**Claimer:** Chichiro and Ketsue are mine, Kaze is BritKit, Aria is FoxWitch. While not all the characters are mine, all writing, storylines and concepts in this fanfiction (Save any YYH references) are. This includes Nirvana, Spike, all shadowcats, the shadowcat species, Escque, Mahdaegrahs/entities, scorpios etcetera.

* * *

"_Not like Hiei can't handle him on his own, anyway," was directed at the demon restraining me, though I wasn't able to turn and look at him. Instead, I focused my gaze ahead at Hiei, watching helplessly as his battle commenced and I was forced to simply observe from the sidelines._

It had been so long since I'd battled that the bloodlust I'd felt earlier began boiling to the surface with a fierceness I had not expected when I realized that I would not be fighting this round at all. I had not minded the idea of Hiei battling Nirvana's mate on his own when I had thought that I, too, would be fighting soon—but I wouldn't be. If I so much as concentrated a single speck of my energy into my hands, the demon behind me would try to snap my fingers off. There was no way I could summon a weapon for a full-out match. _Dirty cheater_, I thought to myself.

For some reason, this situation reminded me mildly of Z'chor, when I had first met Spike, and when I had been given the choice of fighting alone or alongside Hiei. Even though I had decided to fight with Hiei, I had been cornered by Zerathus and forced to fight on my own while Hiei handled the rest. Now, he was handling the only opponent while I was held up doing nothing but watch.

_Oh, Hiei,_ my mind mumbled with sudden desperateness. _I wish I could use my sword to aid yours. It's been too long…_

Just as I felt a sting at my eyes that hinted that for whatever reason tears may have begun to prick at my eyes, I was brought out of my odd melancholy when Hiei shot forward for the ram demon across the room from him. The drawing of his katana had been a flash of light, his movement a mere blur—where had this speed come from? Or had my demon sight simply gotten slow from lack of proper use?

I was amazed and strangely offended when the ram demon blocked Hiei's attack. I figure now that it was merely because at that point I had decided that it was somehow morally wrong to have any sort of equality or advantage over Hiei—it shouldn't have been possible. It went against my version of natural law. And yet there was Nirvana's mate's scythe, blocking Hiei's sword with ease and matching the fire demon's strength as he shoved against it.

"Our offer still stands, Hiei," the ram demon growled suddenly, his voice so low I knew that in my human form I would have had to have strained my ears just to hear it. It was the first and last time I heard him speak, and so I paid little attention to his mention of an 'offer'. No doubt it had been an idea of Nirvana's. "You may join us, with no penalty if you surrender the life of the one my comrade holds captive."

When the Jaganshi withdrew his sword, sprang up above the scythe before it even came close to hitting him and when he managed to stab down into the ram demon's shoulder with such ease, my adoration for Hiei momentarily turned to admiration before the two emotions met and mingled into something that could not be described as anything other than devoted envy. "You should know better," he answered, hissing in the other demon's pointed ear, which was partially obstructed by a ram horn. "Her life is worth more than yours—so why would I ever serve one so low as you _or_ your master?"

I loved him for that talent, that amazing ability to battle, and yet I wanted to be there with him or instead of him fighting and using what he had taught me. The desire became so strong that, without my knowledge, my aura began to flare up to the extent of my unconscious release of energy. The first sickening snapping sound, followed by an onslaught of pain I did not react to as fully as I should have simply for the knowledge it did not threaten my life, made me emit a small grunt of pain. It was not loud, but it was enough to attract Hiei's attention for a split second—enough time for the ram demon to find an advantage. He was behind Hiei before the Jaganshi's gaze could return to him, and Nirvana's mate's bloodied hand was protruding from the front of Hiei's abdomen before I had even seen him move his arm backward.

"_HIEI!"_ I screamed, horrified, feeling my stomach drop. For a split second, I actually faltered in my faith that Hiei could get himself out of any situation, and I thought—with the same sort of certainty I'd had in the final round of the Dark Tournament—that he was surely dead. But then Hiei opened his eyes from his grimace and, gritting his teeth, slashed the head of the demon behind him off its shoulders before I even saw him unsheathe his sword.

"Let go of me, bastard!" I shrieked at the demon restricting my arms, struggling against him, but he didn't seem motivated to keep his hold on me now that the one he'd been taking orders from was dead, and released me. I ran to Hiei, faster than I ever thought I was capable of, just as he fell onto his knees. "Hiei, Hiei," I cried, repeating his name as if it were somehow a query of if he was okay. The actual question, with true words, would have seemed ridiculous to ask after Hiei had someone's hand go completely _through_ him.

He just gave a muffled 'Hn', which I had never been more relieved to hear, and I wasn't surprised to feel tears running down my face.

"Hiei, are you alright?" I finally brought myself to say. "Are you going to be okay?"

I was amazed to hear him chuckle. Of course, I had no idea what he possibly could have found funny of the situation, but I felt the slightest of mimicking smiles sliding across my lips at the sound of it. "I'll be fine, but stop talking. It hurts to laugh."

I almost sobbed, and then I threw my arms around his neck, pulling myself toward him while still reminding myself in the back of my mind to be sure I didn't hurt him. "Oh my God, I thought you were going to die," I whispered hoarsely, restraining myself from sobbing still even as tears streamed down my face. "Are you positive you're alright?"

"'Alright' wouldn't be the word I'd use," he mumbled faintly, and I could hear in his voice that he was in pain. It was the first time in a long while that he had actually revealed with his voice that he was hurting—it just wasn't like Hiei to allow his tone to betray that, "but I'll survive."

I couldn't tell who was in worse shape—Hiei because of his injury, or me because I was a wreck over his injury. It strikes me as funny now that I was in such equally poor condition even though he was the one wounded and not me.

Hiei briefly touched his fingertips to his wound, lifting his arm slowly, as if it didn't want to obey him. He stared at the blood dripping off them intently, as though he were trying to gage how badly he was bleeding just by looking at it. "You think you could…find some sort of substitute for a bandage?" His words were so softly spoken that I think it would have struck me as cute had he not been bleeding everywhere, and had he not had a giant hole in his torso. "I highly doubt I could myself."

I didn't even reply, as I sensed him slipping away from consciousness. When his eyes slipped shut and I felt his body become limp, I looped my arms beneath his and moved him to be laid him against the nearest wall. I debated on what to do only briefly before I recalled that I was not alone, and I glared over at the green lizard demon that had held me before, my gaze more threatening than my voice. "You'd better not be planning anything, scaly, 'cause I'm almost considering letting you live right now."

He just raised his arms in mild-mannered surrender, and his voice was calm and nearly bored-sounding when he spoke. "Don't worry, I don't care enough to start anything."

Again, I considered my options. I was fairly convinced by the other demon's tone that he genuinely didn't care and wouldn't try to further injure Hiei—or injure me—but I still wasn't about to let him stay in the room alone with Hiei while I looked for bandages. I didn't think Nirvana's comrade would be particularly inclined to help, I couldn't leave, and I had little to work with. Thus, I settled on using the lower halves of my pant legs. Glad, then, that I had worn cloth yoga pants rather than jeans like usual, I tore the below-the-knee sections of cloth to lay flat, making them into a pair of thick strips. They sufficed as a rough bandage, though as I was wrapping them about Hiei's torso, I could not help but wince at how bad his wound looked.

The demon seemed to have gotten bored, and he turned and left. My eye twitched as I watched him briefly, but again I was left at the dilemma of what to do. I couldn't wait for Hiei to regain consciousness—he was still bleeding badly, my healing powers were limited, and he needed better help than I could hope to provide.

Suddenly, the oddity of Hiei adding Kurama's cell number to my phone became a beautiful thing. If Kurama was anywhere in the area, my problem would be solved. He did, after all, have far more experience healing wounds than I; I knew from first-hand experience that his plants had amazing medicinal abilities.

I lightly put my hand over Hiei's wound as I selected Kurama's number from my contacts list, and began to heal what I could as the phone rang.

The answer was prompt, and spoken in a mildly surprised tone. "Ketsue?"

Apparently Kurama had my number set as a different ring tone like I did with his.

"Gah, thank _God_, Kurama, you're around to answer your phone!"

"What happened, Ketsue?"

"Hiei's hurt really bad and—you know me—I have no clue what to do!"

Luckily, he knew well enough that if he didn't stop me then, I would rant on long enough that he could make the trip to find us without me ever pausing. Thus, he interrupted before I could continue, "Calm down, just tell me where you are."

"I have no clue!" I repeated, my mind sobered just enough to be irritated by the shrillness of my voice. "Do I _ever_ know where I am? Hiei takes me everywhere!"

"Calm down," Kurama reiterated. "Fine, then, send out some sort of energy signal. I'll borrow Yusuke's motorcycle."

Shoving down my thoughts of how cool Kurama would look on a motorcycle (And considering also what Hiei would look like on one), I clicked off the cell phone, figuring Kurama would know why I hung up. Setting it on the ground next to me, I raised my arm and shot out a huge energy signal; if Kurama needed to speak to me again he could always call back, anyway.

Ignoring how embarrassed I would have been to do so if he was conscious, I linked my hand into Hiei's and leaned on to his shoulder, only lightly and making sure I wasn't hurting him, and I had never been more glad to faintly be able to hear his heartbeat. I had stopped healing his wound, as I had been fairly successful in at least _slowing_ the bleeding, and I knew I wouldn't be able to do much else. Instead, I just sent energy into his hand, hoping it would help his body heal itself. "I love you," I mumbled, the softest I could manage.

Just as I closed my eyes, I heard the faint roar of a motorcycle, and my eyelids shot open. "Kurama," I whispered, and then retrieved my hand from Hiei's grasp, which had seemed to have automatically tightened around mine (I knew he wasn't awake, still, so he certainly hadn't meant to do it) and stood. _Kurama, _I tried, not positive if my mental attempt at communication would work. Even if it was not on this story, I had still caught the tiniest hint of the sound the door of the building made when it was sliding around in its circular pattern again. The entire place was completely silent now, and thus I could hear everything even more perfect that usual. "In here."

When Kurama showed at the doorway, I had never been more relieved to see him. "Kurama, I'm so glad to see y—"

"Ketsue, behind you!"

I began to shift my gaze sideways and started to turn, but was unable to get much farther than 'start'. I felt something shove through me, and my eyes widened. My eyes slid down my body to land on a thick, spiked tail pierced through my stomach, though it wasted no time in tearing itself back out. I grimaced, recognizing the sense of myself losing my footing. I was barely able to spin and catch myself roughly against the wall, which I slid down, unable to remain on my feet.

I blinked up through pain-narrowed eyes at the lizard demon from before. "Thought you didn't 'care enough to start anything'," I muttered weakly. Though my wound was similar to Hiei's, it was vastly less severe and I retained my consciousness.

I could feel Kurama's energy heading for us, though I wasn't about to turn and look at him.

Just as I felt Kurama's energy molding differently, probably to summon his rose whip, I saw the other demon's bloodied, spiked tail lift and slide over into place in front of Hiei's throat. "Don't move, fox."

Anger immediately flared within me, and I heard myself shout something that resembled 'Hyaa!' hardly even aware of my arm thrusting out and shooting an energy spike from it. It lanced cleanly through the demon's neck. I hacked his tail off, just then realizing that I was standing, but something within me knew instinctively that demon tails like his were odd and were probably able to move independently of their masters. I snatched the twisting piece of it from the air before it could even move to attempt to injure Hiei, melting it down with my energy into red slush. The demon was coughing, clutching at his freely bleeding throat, and blood was spurting from his mouth as well. Seeing that demon die was completely different from watching the human, Rex, that I had killed die—I felt no remorse. Merely because I had considered its words not long before, I recalled briefly what the Mahdaegrah had said about remorse. Somehow, I figured that the Mahdaegrah wouldn't mind if I, just this once, thought of this demon as lower than the rest.

I gathered as I saw Kurama's rose whip lash out and slash the demon's head from its shoulders—much like when Hiei had killed the ram demon—that I had probably not given it an immediately fatal wound. Demon bodies were likely different than human bodies in that they would not die rapidly from a throat slash, thus he would have been able to fight back in a matter of moments even if the wound did eventually kill him. I turned to Kurama, about to thank him, but turning my torso reminded me of the fairly well-sized hole through it, and I stumbled sideways and fell clumsily on to the ground. My torso was still upright—my legs had just failed to support me and had slid out from beneath me.

"Ketsue!" Kurama ran toward me, kneeling down before me.

"I'm fine," I muttered at him, opening one eye and flinching, and then I snickered lightly. "Well, maybe not 'fine', but I will be. Hiei's injury is worse than mine. Go help him first."

Kurama's thoughts were readable even without a jagan—in his mind, because Hiei could handle pain and injuries better than I, our wounds were at equal levels even though mine wasn't as severe, and he said, "Ketsue, you know Hiei's—" I glared at him fiercely, and he laughed nervously. "Heh, right, I'll go help Hiei."

I relaxed my stomach muscles and slouched against the wall; the position was painful, but I didn't really care—I was too tired, probably from blood loss. I sensed Kurama summoning a plant from the demon plane, and then after about two minutes I heard Hiei mumble Kurama's name as a question, and a thin smile hinted at my lips.

"Well, good to see you conscious, Hiei. That was a nasty wound you got yourself."

"Hn. Where's Ketsue?"

I had a sort of fuzzy feeling inside at the fact that I was the first thing he thought of.

"Look to your left."

I felt Hiei's eyes on me, but I didn't look at him or try, and I knew he couldn't see my face because, as always, my hair blocked it. "Is she injured?" His voice was accusing, as if he were blaming Kurama for it.

"Yes, I was just about to—"

"Damn it, fox, you know I'm better off than her with wounds. Why did you tend to me first?"

"Because she insisted I did, and you know how intimidating she can—Hiei, don't be foolish, sit down!"

I heard a slight scuffle, and I my mind I played out the scene of Hiei trying to stand and Kurama forcing him back down, and then Hiei finding himself to still be too weak to fight against him. It was an amusing thought.

"You're just lucky I'm injured, fox," I heard Hiei mutter, confirming my thought that he didn't have all his strength back, and again I was attacked by a fierce relief to be able to hear his voice. I had been _so_ scared that he would die when I saw that demon's hand punch through him. "What are you standing around for? Go to Ketsue."

I heard Kurama's footsteps coming toward me, and he kneeled before me. My eyes lifted slowly and met his, though I was not feeling particularly motivated to move and barely shifted my head's position—just enough to be able to see him. "Hiei?" was all I asked.

"He'll be fine. I'm assuming you knew that from listening to our conversation." Kurama sounded a bit exasperated, and I realized it was probably annoying for him to have to deal with me and Hiei, both thinking of each other and ignoring our own wounds until we knew the state of the other. I didn't connect then exactly what that said about Hiei.

I chuckled lightly from my prior consideration. Kurama didn't comment on it, and when I felt a sting on my wound, I was unable to withhold a flinch as I felt my body begin to sew itself together. Because I doubt any of the readers have had themselves healed in a spontaneous, magical way, I will tell you that I would have much preferred having to heal slowly than quickly like I did, as when you feel your body stitch itself up, every connection of tissue is like being wounded all over again.

After the wound thinned and was about halfway healed—there was no longer an entry in the injury from my back, only from the front, and my stomach was scabbed over and had stopped bleeding—I felt the energy flow cease, and I figured Kurama had done the same to Hiei's injury, balancing out his healing power to use equally on both of us.

I took the hand Kurama offered me, and I pulled myself up on it, shoving down the urge to wince. I lost a grin as I caught sight of Hiei from the corner of my eye, and I shifted a glance over in his direction. He was still laid against the wall, and it seemed that the only time he had moved was when he tried to stand before and Kurama had stopped him. There was the faintest of smiles on his lips when our eyes linked, and he stood slowly without aid, steadying himself against the wall before regaining composure.

"Did either of you find anything out?" Kurama asked. I assumed he meant anything helpful that may lead us to Atenre, or that would provide us with some sort of insight on the Escque and demon invasion.

"A dead end," Hiei replied in an annoyed tone. "Unless, of course, you found something out when I was unconscious, Ketsue."

I considered commenting, _Not unless you consider discovering just how sadistic Nirvana is 'finding something out'. _"No, nothing," I mumbled back aloud. I marveled at how we both acted as though nothing had happened at all to either of us; we were speaking like it was a normal conversation, which, I guess, for us it was.

"Damn," Kurama sighed, and even though I had known him for a while, it still surprised me to hear him swear, as I couldn't think of a single time that his anime self had.

I may have despised its disengagement at all other times, but I possessed a certain gladness at my Ofuda's lack of use right then. My wound smarted enough as it was—I wasn't feeling exactly enthusiastic with the idea of having a second, more serious one in the same place…Though, that was not to say that—if he had allowed me to—I would not have taken Hiei's wound in a split second, quite willingly.

My focus on that thought dulled when I felt a pang of pain on my hand, and recalled that one of my fingers had been broken. It was not a pretty sight when I lifted my hand; my index finger was bloodied, each joint seeming somehow _off_, though I could not pinpoint exactly how. "Wonderful," I muttered to myself. "And that's my sword hand…"

I sensed Hiei near me suddenly, and he lifted his own hand so that his palm was set just before the broken finger. I could feel but not see energy emitting his fingertips and the center of his hand, and I realized within seconds that my finger had begun to heal. "Hold on," I said, withdrawing my hand from near his and setting my right arm at my side. Then, I lifted my other and pointed my unbroken left index finger at him and said, "What the hell? You don't have healing powers."

"That's true," he replied, "but you lent me yours." When my only response was a blank stare, he rolled his gorgeous crimson eyes and grumbled, "Ketsue, whether you realize it or not, almost every time you lend me some of your energy, you also give me your healing ability—temporarily."

"…Sweet."

But Hiei merely sighed and muttered something about me being hopeless, sounding oh-so very much like Kaze, and turned to follow Kurama as the fox made way for the outside of the building.

I considered as I was walking behind him that, if I had lent him my healing ability, then it had actually been my own power that had healed my hand, if only partially. This made perfect sense save for the fact that I had never been able to use my healing ability to do too much of anything outside of stopping bleeding or making wounds disappear on the surface. My energy had never been able to actually make a positive difference with the wound beyond superficial and visual repairs—so why had it this time? At least one of my joints wasn't broken any longer, and the others were on a fast road to being healed. _I guess Hiei just knows how to use the powers…?_ I considered to myself, and disregarded it for now, as I didn't feel like wasting time wondering exactly how he knew how to use an ability he did not possess himself.

* * *

The next morning I woke up with a massive sneeze. I knew only how massive it was in that it also woke Kaze—who could sleep through nearly anything. Hell, I think she would have slept through an atomic bomb with ease.

"Bless you," she mumbled sleepily.

"…Thanks." Waking up to a sneeze was not fun, I decided. My eyes were watery and more sensitive than normal, and I felt light-headed. But when the sensations didn't go away after a while, I realized that it was not from the sneeze that I was light-headed, watery-eyed or stuffy-nosed. I had a cold.

"_You won't get a break_," Hiei had told me the previous night after we arrived back at my house, mentioning it only because of both of our injuries, "_and neither will I_."

And yet, somehow, I had found that I could do nothing but smile at the return of my chaotic life. Alas, said return would not take full effect for a while, it seemed. I could hold my own against the pain of a halfway-healed hole in my stomach, sure, but battling the weakness of my body when I had the sniffles was another matter.

It had been cold outside as of late—very much so. Despite this, Hiei had refused to come inside to sleep, even when I offered that he could use the extra bedroom if he minded using mine so much (Though when I said this, he looked at me like I'd lost my mind and assured me that was not what he was worried about.). Thus, it made sense to me that _he_ would have a cold and not me, and I decided it was the work of the Ofuda, not entirely as powerless as I had thought.

As soon as Kaze left later that morning, telling me to feel better, I went back upstairs and headed straight for the trunk beside my window. It was warmer again today, so I could have the window open. "You're sick, you know," I told Hiei, though I could not see him.

"I assure you, I am not," he replied casually, and by the direction of his voice, he was sitting atop the dormer of the opposite window in my room.

I headed for it and sat at my desk, leaning close to the screen and saying, "Yeah, you are. '_I assure you._'"

"I don't get sick," came his voice again, though this time back at his usual window. Glancing back, I saw that he had moved to sit on his usual branch so that he could peer in with a look of flat ridicule. "You don't have any reason to say I do or that I am."

"Damn it, Hiei, you're sick!" I headed back over to the trunk, irritated at all the back-and-forth, both with walking and with our conversation.

"No I'm not," he replied, in a tone that matched the look on his face that spoke for itself: '_That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard_'.

"Maybe not that you're aware of," I growled, sneezing again and groaning unenthusiastically.

"Do I look sick to you?" he asked, muttering it.

"Try'n fully disengage the Ofuda for a second," I growled at him in a nasally voice, figuring he was aware that he did not have full power over it all the time. "I'm not sure how." Or, rather, I wasn't sure how to without warping its powers like the last time I had tried to disengage it.

He looked at me skeptically, but I sensed him do so, and my nose was spontaneously not runny. "See?"

"See what?" he asked. Apparently demons don't get sick in the same sense that humans do, for he showed no symptoms like I had. I considered going to my demon form to avoid the runny nose and weakness of my limbs, but I had to prove my point before I decided whether it was worth the risk of getting caught in that form or not.

"I'm not sick anymore."

"How convenient for you," he mumbled, uninterested, and the Ofuda's power returned.

…And made me sneeze. "See?" I reiterated. "You're sick!"

"I am not," he growled at me, but I could see he was halfway convinced already.

"Yes you are. And you made me sick because of it."

He glared at me for a moment, then said in a flat 'this is final' tone, "I am not sick."

"You so are!" I cried, annoyed. "Don't be so stubborn! I'm not accusing you or anything."

"Than what _are_ you doing?"

"…I'm telling you you're sick. And I want you to admit it."

"But I'm not—"

He was interrupted by a coughing fit from me, and after it faded I said, "You _cannot_ say you aren't sick, now."

He didn't reply, but didn't look at me either. "I'm not."

I just growled and decided against fighting with him anymore. I always felt partially brain-dead when I was under the weather, and although it occasionally made for some fairly amusing situations thanks to aid-headed mistakes on my end, it did not make it so very easy for me to argue. It also didn't make me very motivated to try.

"Whatever," I mumbled, touching a hand to my forehead when a brief spell of dizziness overtook me.

I felt Hiei's eyes on me finally. "Sit down, would you? Even if I'm not sick, you obviously are."

"Le'me guess," I muttered, "I have to be well for fighting?"

"Tonight," he agreed. "And I'm sure you've figured this out, but your demon form should be far more suitable for dealing with a sickness than your human one. It will obviously be the one you fight in anyway, so you needn't worry too much about making yourself well."

"Not that I can anyway," I replied, flopping down on my bed and draping an arm over my eyes and forehead. I heaved a large sigh and murmured, "Wake me up when it's time to leave," before closing my eyes and allowing the strange, limp weightlessness of my body to take over. I slept the day away, waking only to tell my human mother that I was ill.

* * *

"Ketsue."

I groaned and swatted my hand toward my side, where I'd felt the hilt of Hiei's sword jab me in the ribs. Yanking a pillow over my exposed ear, I stubbornly kept my eyes squeezed shut.

I briefly thought I heard his sword sliding from its sheath, but I decided I was imagining things—Hiei wouldn't be _that_ desperate to rouse me. But, apparently, I was wrong; not two seconds later I felt a small but sharp prod on the same place on my side. Recoiling from the tiny prick more from alarm than from the tiny needle-like pain and unaware of how close to the side of my mattress I was, I cried out as I fell off my bed and onto the dishes on the floor. My human mother had brought me soup when she realized I was sick, but had left me alone otherwise save for a few check-ups. If the bowl had not been there, it's doubtful I would have cared as much about "falling" off my bed, it being short as it was. The spoon digging into my back was not very comfortable.

"_Augh!_" I growled, yanking the pillow from my head and chucking it angrily across the room before I snarled Hiei's name. "What do you want?!"

"Get up," he told me simply. "It's time to go." Another groan answered him before my ears caught the faint sound of his boots heading for the windowsill. "Don't make me tell you again," he added in a threatening tone before I sensed him outside once again, no doubt waiting on the branch of his tree.

"Gi'me a minute," I grumbled to myself, picking myself up off the floor finally and shoving my hair from my face. "I need to get dressed'n ready'n stuff…"

"Transform before you change or try anything," he told me from outside. "It will make it a hell of a lot easier on you."

"Sure thing," I conceded groggily, obeying. I still didn't feel one hundred percent, but it was far simpler for me to ignore my sickness-induced weakness and it somewhat collected my spacey mind.

Once I'd dressed in a gray camisole (I seemed to be missing all of my black ones—of course, it was plausible that they'd all been destroyed in various battles—and I did not feel like wearing a t-shirt) and blue jeans, brushed my teeth and hair and had pulled said hair back into a ponytail to keep it out of my face, I headed for the window. "Are you going to distract my parents' minds with your jagan?"

"I'll have to this time," Hiei agreed, confirming my suspicion with his explanation: "They will be checking on you, I'm sure, and being that you're sick you cannot use the excuse of going off with friends."

"Mm'kay." I rubbed a fist at my eye, wincing and cursing in the same when a throb of pain reminded me of my finger, which was still not in the best shape.

"Are you going to be able to fight with that?" Hiei asked.

"Pfft, please," I replied arrogantly. "Like a finger is going to stop me."

For a moment I thought he'd say something like, '_Unless it's mine_', while hinting at being able to easily beat me in a spar, but he merely commented, "As you said, that _is_ your sword hand. Better try and heal it some more on our way there so that you aren't caught at a disadvantage."

"Alright," I sighed, turning to leap off the branch. I figured this time around I would run there myself and not rely on Hiei to carry me. We were both wounded, but he had the worse of the two injuries and I wasn't about to lean on him just because it would make it easier for me.

Our trip did not take us where I had expected; not to say I knew exactly where we would be headed, but I figured it'd be in the human world. Less than forty minutes after we'd left my house, however, Hiei indicated a rift-tear lingering quite randomly in the center of the sky out in the middle of a field. He then grabbed me about my midsection (though careful of my wound) and leapt upward, apparently figuring—and correctly—that I did not want to try and attempt to make the jump myself just yet.

Falling had never been an uneventful thing, but it was rarely interrupted as it was as soon as we passed through the rift-tear. Unable to see what had happened to Hiei, I was forced to focus on the fact that something had slammed into my side while my form was dropping, and that said something was nothing small or gentle. Twisting and ignoring as best I could the fact that the pressure of my assailant was now shoving against my wound, I pressed my hands onto the huge muzzle of the attacker and blasted energy through it. With a loud shriek, the source of the pressure beneath my ribcage drew back, and the creature reared far enough away for me to determine that it was an entity of sorts. The rotting on its face was worse than most I'd seen before then, and the stench of the decomposition had also worsened. Most entities at least seemed alive—this one looked and smelled dead or at least zombie-like, not unlike the Escque.

I took advantage of the stinking creature's distraction and threw an energy blast from my palms, inner wrists pressed together as I did so. I was used to defeating my enemies, sure, but not quite as quickly as I did—with one attack, a huge hole yawned beneath its chin and burst through the top of its skull, its snake-like form collapsing limply into a messy coil on the ground.

I was barely focused enough on my surroundings to land even semi-cleanly, having kept my attention solely on the entity. Straightening my legs, which were mildly shaky, I quickly decided I'd never been wherever I was—the air felt thick and muggy like a humid day in the human world, but it had the clean feel of the demon world. More likely it wasn't either and it was an entirely different world I'd never seen.

Better yet, Hiei was nowhere to be seen, and I didn't sense him. Had he been attacked, too? _But_, my mind reasoned, _if I could handle that thing so easily, surely he wouldn't have been in any trouble being attacked by something like that._ I decided on optimism so that I didn't also consider that the type of entity that had attacked me was likely not the only kind native to wherever I was.

Thoughts of Hiei were temporarily drowned out when I heard another familiar screech, but this was no entity. Turning, I faced the weird-looking, multi-legged scorpio whom Hiei had named as Murtur earlier. I felt strangely inferior upon looking at it face to face, without it being distracted by Hiei, but I oddly felt no fear.

"Greetings," it hissed, its tail-like appendage swinging behind it, as if alerting me to its stinger once more. Trying to induce the fear I seemed to be missing, perhaps? It then bent its upper body, the section that seemed like a human-torso, in what appeared to be a bow.

Awkwardly, I mimicked the gesture and murmured, "Hello."

"Panas." An expression quite like a gruesome imitation of a smile had snuck onto its face. "It is an honor."

…That was the second random creature I'd never met formally that had called me Panas and acted like I was some kind of demon royalty. That I knew of, Chichiro had been nothing of the sort, and Aletta didn't have a double name. So why the hell did people keep calling me Panas?

Being that I knew by then it could read my mind—and without effort, annoyingly enough—I didn't voice my question. It would tell if it felt like it. "Thank you, uhm…Murtur, I think it was?"

The lips of its second mouth curled upward in what I figured was another twisted grin, and when it emitted a sound that seemed like a whistle put through a voice scrambler, I figured that was its version of a laugh. "Your pronunciation brings ache to my ears, but you've the correct mind."

After I reminded myself that it learned the language Hiei and I spoke simply by stealing the knowledge from our minds, I guessed 'you've the correct mind' was the oddly translated version of 'you're close enough'. Uncomfortable speaking to it and guessing it already knew my name from reading my thoughts (besides, it seemed happy to call me Panas, whatever the hell that meant), I figured I should submit to my natural one-track mind and thus asked, "Have you seen Hiei?"

The glint in its black gaze made me regret ever voicing it; obviously it had not felt the need to delve into my mind and find out that I was not alone by choice, but the question made that obvious. "Nay, I've not. But being that you have not done so in some time either, I should think this'd be a convenient time to—"

"Murtur," greeted a cold voice from behind me, and I felt relief wash over me as I recognized Hiei's annoyed tone. "What exactly are you doing with my almost-mate?"

I felt my heart lurch at that. What the _hell_ did he mean by _that_? Glancing backward, I realized that Hiei's demeanor was quite similar to Spike's at the moment. I could guess easily enough what that meant.

"Ah, so we meet again, Lady." Murtur seemed pleased as Nirvana shifted form back into her usual, ram demoness self, walking to stand beside me. She probably enjoyed the fact that she towered over me.

Her language was different when she spoke initially for Murtur's benefit through Hiei's voice, but I understood her words to be, "Mm, yeah, good to see you," as though it had been English. She smirked toothily and switched languages. "And you, too, Ketsue-dearest," she cooed as she turned to me. "And so…alive."

I curled my lip at her, narrowing my eyes as I glared from the corner of my eyes but refusing to turn my head to acknowledge her in any other way. The fact that she would show herself likely meant she knew Hiei was not around. Which could have also meant she knew where he was.

Murtur spoke my thoughts aloud and hissed to Nirvana, "Female wishes to obtain if you've any knowledge of female's true almost-mate."

…I really had to get used to its odd way of speaking. And also the fact that everyone in demon world apparently had the same views as Yusuke and his friends in that Hiei and I were a couple, so I thought 'almost-mate' probably meant.

"Well, I may know _something_," Nirvana purred, diva lips curling into her usual cruel smirk as she glanced down at me.

My fear of the scorpio lingered beneath the surface, but fear of Nirvana when she was in her normal form was nonexistent. "Bitch," I muttered simply.

"Now, where are your manners?" She strung her hands around my shoulders, having moved without my notice, and her limbs hung there loosely as if we were close friends. "And, my, you're stiff. Loosen up." As if I'd been attacked my a random case of exhaustion, my body relaxed entirely, becoming limp, but her hands were there beneath my arms to catch me. "You know, your battle defenses are fairly good, but your defense against charms is entirely lacking. If you wish to face Atenre or any of his followers—such as Murtur and myself—you'd best have your demon train you in that as well." I found myself surprisingly unimpressed with her show of her control over me, but the fact that Murtur was one of Atenre's subordinates instilled some form of fear within me. If someone so strong submitted to his will as Nirvana also had, exactly how powerful _was_ Atenre? "Don't worry about that now, though. You're tired, aren't you?"

I didn't even consider replying, and yet my mouth formed the quiet words of, "Very tired," in response.

"And you're going to rest?"

"Rest," I echoed faintly. "Yes."

The next thing I heard was Kurama's confused-seeming, mildly disbelieving greeting of, "Ketsue?"

I was aware that time had passed since Nirvana had charmed me, but beyond that was sure of nothing.

It didn't take me long to pick up that my eyes were closed, and I was amazed at how difficult it was to open them. "Kur…ama?" My voice was extremely faint.

"What's up with her?" Yusuke's voice put in. Rather than seeming concerned in any manner possible, he sounded amused. That thought was seconded when he suggested without true seriousness, "Is she high?"

"I think she's been charmed," Kurama decided aloud, and my bleary vision was barely able to make out the fact that he knelt down before me. "What happened, Ketsue?"

_You're right, I was charmed. It was Nirvana, and that scorpio, Murtur, was there, too._ That was how I had intended to response, but instead, I was appalled to find that my lips refused to obey and rather said, "It was Nirvana's right to charm Murtur, the scorpio, there," like my mind couldn't put the sentence together in the right order.

And of course Yusuke only snickered. "Dude, I think she _is_ high."

Kurama sighed, sounding as exasperated as I felt. "She isn't high, Yusuke. She's—"

"Mental?" Yusuke suggested. "I was gonna guess that next."

"…You just did. And no, you're wrong again. As I said, she's been charmed. I'm sure what she just said made perfect sense in her mind."

The way he said it, it seemed he thought I had meant to say it the way I did because that sounded right to me. _You're wrong, I know I said that wrong._ "I'm wrong, said you." …Well, at least as irritating as it was, my sentences could have been actual phrases had it been in a different context and if I worded things differently than I tended to.

"What kind of charm does that?" Yusuke asked, pretending to be serious, but his tone betrayed him—he still found it funny, the bastard.

"I'm not sure. I doubt it'll last."

"It's better I'm not this sick," I mumbled flatly. My intention had been to say, _It better not. I'm sick of this._

"Perhaps you shouldn't try to speak, Ketsue?" Kurama suggested.

_Well, you're smart enough_, I grumbled in my mind. _You should be able to figure out what I'm trying to say._

"Ketsue, do you think you could answer yes or no if I asked you a few questions?" I heard Kurama ask. "You were able to say my name fine, so I think it's only sentences that you have trouble saying." After a moment of silence, he asked, "Is your name Ketsue?"

I blinked, though I could see little and it didn't help much, and although I had no clue why he asked me that, I said, "Yes."

"…Okay, I know she's wondering the same thing I am," Yusuke butted in. "Why the hell did you ask that?"

"I asked her a simple question so that I could make sure that she is indeed able to say yes or no in the correct circumstances."

"Well, then we should test no, too, right?" the detective asked. "Okay, Chichiro, answer this: Do you think if I was dared to that I'd eat a horseshoe crab shell?"

Unsure of whether Yusuke was just that strange or whether the charm had affected my mind, too, I answered uncertainly, "No?"

Kurama sighed. "Yusuke, please. Stop amusing yourself, will you?" I noticed Yusuke's chuckles after the fox grumbled that, and realized he had done that only to irritate me. It worked once I recognized his intent. "Are you twenty human-years, Ketsue?"

_Thank God for a normal question._ "No."

"Alright." Kurama seemed pleased by that. "Now, I'm going to try and figure out why you mentioned Nirvana and Murtur, so only answer 'yes' if it has to do with what happened before you were charmed, even if 'yes' would normally be the answer. Understand?"

"Yes," was my flat response.

"Did Murtur or Nirvana do this to you?"

"Yes."

"Murtur?"

"No."

"So Nirvana," Kurama noted to himself. "Did you realize her intent while she was doing it?"

I had to consider my response—I had known she charmed my body into weakness, but not that she intended to do anything to my ability to speak. "No."

"Did she charm you in any other way that you're aware of?"

"Yes."

Kurama paused briefly, likely trying to figure out how to question what the other charm did. "Try to think of a single word that can tell us what else she did, Ketsue, and see if you can speak it."

_Weakened._ It came out as, "End weak."

"The weekend?" Yusuke assumed, seeming confused.

"No, perhaps the other form of the word 'weekend'. Did she weaken your body, Ketsue?"

"Yes," I responded, glad Kurama was there rather than Yusuke alone.

I could barely make out the blurry image of Kurama shifting his arm, making a swishing movement before my face. "Can you see my hand?"

I could see movement, and I could figure out what it was, but did that mean I could see it? I wasn't sure of how to answer it.

"If you can tell what it is by sight alone, say yes," Kurama told me, guessing that I wasn't sure how to respond. "If you can sense my hand, see only movement or nothing at all, say no."

"No."

I sensed Yusuke step closer. "So, where is this getting us, exactly?"

"I'm trying to figure out the charms Nirvana used so I can reverse their effect," Kurama muttered, apparently as irritated with Yusuke as I was becoming.

"You can do that?" the detective queried, seeming impressed.

"I can certainly try." His focus returning to me, the fox asked, "Was Hiei with you when this happened?"

_Hiei! Where is he? Have you seen him?_ "Has Hiei seen you where he is?"

"No, Ketsue, we haven't seen him and that's why I asked you. Was he with you?"

At least he was picking up on my speech pattern, though I couldn't really tell one myself. "No."

"Was he with you when you saw Murtur and Nirvana?"

"No."

"Was he with you when you got that cut on your face?"

_What cut? I don't remember getting that._ "That cut doesn't remember getting me."

Ignoring that response, Kurama repeated, "Was he with you?"

_I don't know_, came off as the question, "Don't I know?"

Yusuke found that one funny, too. I itched to break his nose, or at least a finger or two, but I couldn't see to do so.

"Was he with you when you left human world?" Kurama tried again.

"Yes."

"Did you see him after you left human world?"

"No."

This interrogation continued for a while. Kurama was much better at figuring out my gibberish than I thought even he would have been, and after a while he asked me less and less yes and no questions and allowed me to speak my warped sentence-long answers. He figured out that I hadn't been aware of and that I couldn't feel the cut on my face, that I didn't know how long I had been out, that I didn't know where I had been or where I was or if I had been moved, that I didn't know where Hiei had gone off to, that I couldn't sense him from where I was (I figured he asked that even though he likely couldn't either because apparently I could sense Hiei sooner than most) and that no, I had no clue how long the charm was meant to last.

There was silence after Kurama's string of questions ended, but it lasted only a short while before the fox asked, "Ketsue, would you let me carry you?"

_Like I have a choice? I can't do it myself._ "I have a choice, like I, myself, can't do it." It oddly sounded like a badly-formed line from a poem, and if I had not been so irritated with my own inability to speak, I probably would have found that cool.

"Is that a yes?"

"Yes," I grumbled, annoyed.

As soon as he touched me, my body went slack again as it had for Nirvana. I was unable to sit back up on my own. "A consent charm?" Kurama suggested, seeming surprised. "I wasn't aware Nirvana knew such an incantation." He muttered something, and after I felt a brief buzz of energy through me, my vision cleared and I was able to sit up.

Hoping my lack of ability to speak correctly was gone as well, I tried to say, _Thanks. Where are we? Don't you think we should find Hiei, now?_ "Hiei thinks we should try to find where we are, thanks. You don't."

From beside Kurama, Yusuke said, "Translation?"

Kurama shrugged, standing from where he had been propping me up while my body was still limp. "I'm not sure with that one. She thanked me and asked where we were. I'm not clear on where Hiei came in, though." To me, he suggested, "Were you asking where he was, as well?"

"Yes!" I cried, leaping to my feet, though I felt woozy. _We have to find him. This freakin' speech thing can wait._ "Freakin' thing can wait to find him, have speech."

"Let's stick to the yes or no questions, Ketsue, shall we?" Kurama ran a hand through his hair. "We can try to find Hiei, yes, though I'm not sure where to start."

Irritated, I nodded silently. I wanted to mention we should beware of entities, but I doubted he could figure that one out.

Becoming curious of whether or not I was in the same place, I finally looked to where we were. Certainly not where I had been with Nirvana and Murtur. The land around us was misty, the few trees I saw dark and twisted as they had been in the world Spike had taken me to 'spar' during the tournament. "Tree's demon?" I guessed.

"Demon trees, yes," Kurama confirmed. "They are rather tame, though, so I wouldn't worry about them. Just don't get too close."

I nodded mutely, finally taking the time to wonder exactly how Hiei and I had been separated. We _had_ gone through the same rift-tear, hadn't we? Even if the rift-tear had conveniently changed its connection between the worlds the split second we passed through, Hiei had been holding me about my waist to help me jump through it and the only reason his hold had been broken was because of that entity.

"Did you hear me?"

Bringing myself back to reality, I looked to Kurama as he spoke to me. "Nope." At least I could still answer fine with singular words, right?

"Follow Yusuke and I. Even if you sense Hiei, I don't want you wandering off on your own," he told me.

I felt my eye twitch. What was I to him, a two year old being babysat in a store or something? I only nodded again, figuring if I tried to point out what it sounded like he was inferring with what he'd told me that I'd fail miserably in the attempt. I still had no idea when my speech abilities would return, after all.

As we walked, I unconsciously began to rub at my splintered index finger. The small throbs of pain made me realize for the first time that I had been able to fight the entity fine despite the disadvantage of my injured dominant hand. This, continuing on to yet another only partially-related subject, made me consider a thought that had suddenly occurred to me: Why had there been so many entities as of late?

"Entities," I said simply, and when I had Kurama's focus, I lingered briefly on how to tell him what I was thinking.

"What about them?" he asked finally, when I could think of nothing to explain myself.

_There have been many attacks by them as of late, and not as many by the Escque._ "Late Escque attack many, not been by them." I grimaced at the way it came out. I could only hope that Kurama's strange ability to understand would hold out; I knew I, for one, would not be able to decipher such ramblings if someone else had said that to me.

"It's true the Escque haven't been attacking as often," Kurama responded immediately as though I'd spoken coherently and normally, "but I'm not sure where the entities came into that."

"Whoa, hold on," Yusuke interrupted. "I thought she said the Escque _had_ attacked a lot lately?"

"No," Kurama replied simply, with no doubt of himself.

"You sure?" Yusuke persisted, glancing toward me.

"I am," Kurama assured him, "but if it'd make you feel better…Ketsue, did you mean that the Escque hadn't been attacking very often?"

"Yes." I nodded.

Kurama didn't even look to Yusuke, simply looking off to the side at nothing in specific. "Well, what of your mention of the entities?"

_They have been attacking often,_ my mind wanted to say. Instead, my mouth said, "Often attacking, they have been." But even if it sounded a bit like Yoda and I still felt moronic when my lips formed it, I knew that one had come out more clearly and to the actual point of my intended wording than the last few. Perhaps the charm was wearing off…?

"Indeed," the fox demon agreed, beginning to walk once more. "Atenre is either feeling desperate or confident that this invasion will be over soon—he's sending in his stronger demons. Soon, I suspect he'll upgrade once again to using squads of A-class demons such as Nirvana and her warriors."

He said it so calmly that for a moment, I felt like smacking him. But, being around Hiei as long as I had been, I realized that eventually the ones fighting in this war—specifically the demons such as Hiei and Kurama—began to numb to the concept. Either that, or they had never cared in the first place, which was an option I didn't enjoy humoring. "Oh."

I jerked when I heard a buzzing sound, my body automatically stiffening into a defensive stance. Yusuke was the first to lose a laugh at my response to the sound, though Kurama chuckled lightly afterward as well. Feeling an embarrassed flush make my face hot, I growled, "Funny, so what? That was what noise?" _What's so funny? What was that noise?_

Kurama withdrew a purple disk from his pocket that looked mildly (and amusingly) like a makeup container, holding it up so I could see it. "A communication window," he told me. "Surely they mention it in the television cartoon?"

Like many anime fans, I used to take offense to my favorite shows being called 'cartoons' because for some reason, it felt degrading. Even if I'm past it now, it made me twitch then. "Yeah, they did, but they were called communication mirrors, not windows."

"Ketsue," Kurama said with a warm smile, "you're speaking normally."

I blinked at him a moment, quirking an eyebrow, and then felt a large grin across my face as well. "Finally!"

"'Mirrors'?" Yusuke quoted, glancing at the little device and ignoring the improvement of my speech. "Weird. They don't reflect anything at all."

"Well, it's no window either," I replied indignantly, irritated with him for no apparent reason.

He snorted. "'S like a window to Koenma's dimension. Makes more sense than a _mirror._"

I just glared away from him and grumbled, "Whatever."

Yusuke, on the other hand, went to stand next to Kurama and listen in on whatever conversation was going on. As I headed over as well, I blinked and raised my eyebrows in confusion. The screen was blank, save for some static—yet, the two near me both paled suddenly.

When they said nothing and merely continued to stare at the screen fixedly as though they were actually watching something, I said, "What? What is it?"

"The charm Nirvana put on you must have also hindered your spiritual awareness," Kurama told me in a hurried voice.

_Just how many effects does this dumb charm have?_ I wondered to myself.

"That was Koenma, with orders," he went on. The next part, which stunned and horrified me, made my eyes widen. "It seems that Hiei has been captured."


	36. Nirvana's Stronghold

**Disclaimer:** Neither Hiei or YuYu Hakusho are mine.

**Claimer:** Chichiro and Ketsue are mine, Kaze is BritKit, Aria is FoxWitch. While not all the characters are mine, all writing, storylines and concepts in this fanfiction (Save any YYH references) are. This includes Nirvana, Spike, all shadowcats, the shadowcat species, Escque, Mahdaegrahs/entities, scorpios etcetera.

* * *

"_What? What is it?"_

"_The charm Nirvana put on you must have also hindered your spiritual awareness," Kurama told me in a hurried voice._

Just how many effects does this dumb charm have?_ I wondered to myself._

"_That was Koenma, with orders," he went on. The next part, which stunned and horrified me, made my eyes widen. "It seems that Hiei has been captured."_

It felt as though my body was not my own. It was weightless, in a sense; I was barely aware of it moving forward, and I made no conscious effort to walk despite the fact my feet were still moving in the right direction. _Captured_. No matter how many times my mind echoed the word, it still felt foreign. Surely it was impossible to capture Hiei, wasn't it?

Once Kurama had relayed the message to me, he and Yusuke had temporarily ignored me while they spoke with one another about how best to approach the situation. Yusuke had suggested going to fetch Kuwabara from the human world—"_Even _he_ can help sometimes. I think he'll agree this is an exception to his No-Spirit-World-Related-Things-During-Classes rule._"—and Kurama had agreed that it was a worthwhile idea.

"_Ketsue and I will head to Nirvana's stronghold_," Kurama had told Yusuke. "_You and Kuwabara needn't rush—we will merely assess the situation and then report back._"

I had felt like shouting, _There's no way I'm just going to stake the place out; I'm getting Hiei back as soon as we get there._ I had held my tongue despite. Perhaps if I had spoken my thoughts, I would have been given Yusuke's job and the former detective would have aided Kurama in my place. Sure, it probably would have actually been a smart move on their part to send Yusuke instead of me, but I was not thinking nearly so clearly right then.

"Ketsue."

Kurama's voice shook me from my thoughts, though my attention was only partially given to him. It was impossible to stop thinking about Hiei right then. I had only just gotten him back and _this_ happened. And right under my nose, too… "Hmm?" My response was flat, without interest.

"Follow me." He indicated a rift-tear above us, which he had apparently been leading me toward.

I obeyed in silence. Only when I caught sight of the frozen landscape below us and realized once my feet touched the snow-covered ground that I recognized the place did I speak. "Where are we going?" I had once traveled across this landscape with Spike, and left it with Hiei.

"I told you already," Kurama replied, "to Nirvana's stronghold."

"Why here?" I continued on, feeling almost as though I was dreaming.

"It's the quickest shortcut." He glanced back at me. "And we must request aid."

I narrowed my eyes at him, wondering if it was worth it to bother to ask from whom or not. I chose to. "Who could we possibly find here? There's no one around to—"

In his usual manner, Kurama interrupted me quickly. "We will not find them in this world. We need to find the rift-tear to Z'chor."

"The shadowcats," I realized aloud. "But, why would they help us?"

"I'm not sure they will," the fox admitted easily, "but I'm willing to risk loss of time for the hope that they will let us call in a favor."

_Favor…?_ I wondered, but was unable to ask him what he meant, as I spotted movement from the corner of my eyes and I stopped short, bewildered. Far below us, I could make out two forms walking the same direction we were heading—a girl and a man, by the looks of it. But the girl looked so familiar that I thought I must be imagining it; the way she walked and the uncommon length of her pale blonde hair…She was me!

"Kur—"

"Don't look at them, Ketsue," he interjected before I could finish speaking his name.

"But how…?"

"As I've told you before, this world does not follow the laws of the world you know," he began calmly. "The same goes for time in this place—it does not follow the flow that you are accustomed to. But, to be able to watch the future so clearly is…disorienting, to say the least. Look away."

The last sentence had been said with some force, and my eyes returned to my feet. Something about that image seemed to feel the need to haunt me, though—the form I'd recognized to be myself had been bleeding, and I had acquired no wounds that would show from that far away. The distance that my future self had been would take us quite a while to cover, perhaps half an hour, perhaps more. So what was to happen in that time…?

We had walked on a short ways before I could not contain myself any longer. "Kurama!"

He breathed in a little deeper than usual, letting the breath slip from his lips slowly; it sounded like a sigh of a particularly frustrated person, one who was trying not to become angry. "Yes, Ketsue?" he asked.

"What _was_ that?"

"I've told you. Time does not—"

"That's the _why_, not the _what_," I interrupted impatiently. "Did I really…Were those really us?"

"Yes," he confirmed bluntly.

I didn't bother trying to respond.

As I mulled over what I had witnessed in my mind, my focus slid from making sure I was following Kurama, and I began to veer off the path of his footfalls unknowingly.

Kurama had just begun to form my name with his lips, likely to tell me I was getting off track, when there was a sudden explosion of snow from the side of us—the direction I was headed in. I was so disoriented by the force of it that it took me a moment to register that I'd been thrown backward some thirty feet and was currently sprawled on my back with my legs tangled in the branches of the tree my backside was leaned against.

Uttering a little groan, I tried to clear my blurry eyes, though to no avail. Dimly, I recognized that I had hit my head on something, but I was more worried about Kurama than that at the moment. Hoisting myself up into a sitting position, I slid my legs gingerly from the branches, ignoring the miniscule scrapes along my calves and ankles from the rough bark of the pale, snow-covered tree I'd slammed into. Glancing blearily around, still lacking much range of vision, I made out the blurry shape of Kurama fending off…something. It was enormous, probably a few stories high by human measurements, and its shape was oddly feline-like.

Struggling to my feet, I was reminded again of Hiei's absence. Normally, I was used to feeling safe even when knocked senseless like this, safe with the knowledge that Hiei would and was able to defend me. But I was unaccustomed to battling alongside Kurama, and thus unsure of his abilities and priorities.

From nowhere, there were suddenly several more human-like shapes hurtling at the giant cat-creature, fighting with Kurama rather than against him, and it took me only a moment to recognize Spike's energy; so much for having to go to Z'chor to fetch them. As soon as the recognition entered my mind, I realized also that the giant cat's energy was similar to a shadowcat's, but not exactly the same; perhaps a different breed of shadowcat?

"Miss Ketsueki?" ventured a soft, though professionally stiff, female voice behind me.

My eyes were barely able to sharpen the image of Asakari's face enough for me to recognize her. "As…Asakari," I greeted her, surprised.

"Indeed, Miss Ketsueki. Now, if you could please follow me…?"

Without waiting for my response, she grabbed my arm and began to quickly lead me through the trees. Unable to see, I could do little but be frustrated at my blurred vision and follow the she-cat without protest. Said 'following' didn't last long, however, as Asakari stopped short suddenly and crouched behind a pair of trees, yanking me down with her. "If I leave to go aid them, will you stay here?" she asked me in a hurried tone.

"Y-yeah," I agreed uncertainly. I knew that if I tried to follow her, I'd fail miserably and likely trip and hurt myself, clumsy as I was. Thus, there was little arguing to be done. "Go ahead."

She leapt away in a shot, sprinting back toward the sounds of the battle.

I slumped from my crouch and sat against the tree, just then noticing how sensitive my left side was. Testing my ribs gently with my palm and fingertips, I found that I flinched upon even the slightest bit of contact and wondered briefly—without much interest—whether they were just bruised or if they were broken.

An ear-shattering roar suddenly split through the air like a lightning bolt that had struck far too close for comfort. Retrieving my right arm from where it had rested against my side, I pressed my hands to my ears for comfort even though the giant shadowcat's thunderous bellow had long since passed. "Damn," I whispered to myself, just then beginning to feel like a child again. Not only was I not able to fight, I wasn't even making the _attempt_—I should at least try, right? Besides, I was not being much help sitting there useless in hiding while everyone else risked their necks against the adversary, and somewhere in the back of my mind I knew one of the main reasons Spike and his party had intervened was because he'd recognized my energy and had wanted to protect me.

I forced myself to stand again, more light-headed this time than the first. Drawing a hand to my forehead out of habit, I was surprised but not stunned to feel blood soaking my hairline and beginning to run down the contours of my face and into my eyes. Squeezing them shut, I scrubbed vigorously at my face, hoping to clear my already-failing sight at least the slightest bit and ensure that the blood did not make it any worse. It was, of course, a bad move on my part; closing my eyes and making my head move up and down with the rubbing motion only served to make me feel more air-headed and the slightest bit queasy.

Letting my legs slide from beneath me resignedly, I realized why Asakari had brought me back here—I really _wouldn't_ be any use to them right then…Although, as I listened and picked up on the fact that the sounds of battle had ceased, I also realized that there was nowhere to be useful at—the fight had stopped.

I started as I heard Spike's voice at my side asking, "You didn't by any chance get a concussion, did you Ketsue?"

"Dunno," I answered truthfully, grinning in his general direction; I recognized him from the several other blobby shapes around me only because of his silver hair. "Probably."

"Good!"

He sounded so cheerful at the fact that it took me a moment to quote disbelievingly, "'Good'?"

"Of course!" he concurred quickly, with the same out-of-place note of joviality. "Now Mister Master-Fox-Thief over here cannot force you into any unnecessary battles."

"…Ah," I said flatly in reply. So he wasn't pleased about the concussion—he was pleased by the results of it and the fact that he apparently thought I'd be safer with one than without. "Well, y'see, that's gonna be a problem. 'Cause even if Kurama doesn't 'force' me into any 'unnecessary' battles, I'm probably still gonna try to fight in 'em because—"

"Yes, I know, your demon had been captured," Spike finished for me. "So I've been told. That is, of course, the reason I sought the two of you out in the first place—I intend to help."

Before I could bring up the point that I only remembered Kurama and myself being in the flash of the future that I'd seen, Kurama provided the reason for it: "And Spike has agreed to head off Nirvana's guard forces for us," he told me. "I figured we would be following a bit slower while your head clears some, so it will give him and his team time to eliminate some challenges for us."

"…Good," I managed finally with a weak smile, "but, uhm, nobody's bothered telling me yet why a giant cat just attacked us."

"Ah, that," Spike came in again. "Well, ever since he aided us in the Shadowcat war, Kurama and the King shadowcats haven't been on the best terms. So the rogues still attack him once and a while."

"But I thought—?"

"The 'Kings' are a species, not royalty," Spike went on before I could finish my question about having thought that Spike was the leader of the shadowcats. "And they are not under the same rule as my species—The Inuichi, in case you can't recall."

And by 'you can't recall' I was sure he meant 'in case Chichiro's knowledge of my breed hasn't carried over in the reincarnation'. His version was shorter, in any case.

"…Well?" It was Spike's voice again. "Are you going to sit there all day, Ketsue, or are you going to take my hand?"

I blinked several times in an attempt to clear my vision, and finally I recognized the fuzzy shape of Spike's outstretched hand, reaching out and linking my own into it.

"I suspect she couldn't see it," Kurama put in as Spike pulled me up quickly but surprisingly gently, making sure to steady me. He didn't let go of my hand immediately.

"No harm," the shadowcat said, finally letting his hand slip from mine casually. "Shall we, then?"

My vision was improving somewhat now that I was back on my feet, and I could see the rest of the group (Spike, Kurama and Asakari, as well as Kent—whom I'd just noticed) beginning to head in the direction Kurama and I had been going before the interruption. "But I thought you and the others were leaving?" I addressed Spike.

"Well, if you'd _like_ for us to go sooner…" he began in an amused tone.

"That's not what I meant," I groaned, knowing he had enjoyed himself immensely in the attempt to make me flounder over a way to ask my question without offending him. "I meant that Kurama made it seem like you were going sooner, not that I want you to."

To that, Spike jested cheerily, "So you want us to stay?"

"That's not what I meant, either," I replied flatly, though Spike only chuckled.

"They will accompany us a short ways, Ketsue," Kurama spoke up. "Rogue King shadowcats often travel in packs, and I'd rather not attempt to fight one alone. Lord Spike seemed more than willing to escort us closer to our rift-tear."

It was the first time I'd ever heard anyone other than a shadowcat address Spike as 'Lord,' and I found myself especially surprised that it was Kurama who had done it.

"Indeed!" the mentioned shadowcat spoke up again, enthusiastically suggesting, "And during said escorting, I'll be more than happy to help Ketsue along until her vision clears."

_For 'giving up' on me_, I thought to myself with mild humor and mingled irritation as my mind drifted back to when he had said that 'things would have never worked out between us' because Hiei and I were apparently 'too perfect for each other', _Spike sure is being persistent…_

"Thank you, Lord Spike," Kurama said quickly, "but I believe Asakari will be fine for the task." Before Spike could protest, he went on, "I have some things I must discuss with you on our way; best not trouble Ketsue with anything else, yes?"

"I suppose," Spike agreed, though there was a note of severe disappointment in his voice.

I gave Kurama a grateful look, then glanced sideways as Asakari came up beside me and offered me her arm. Uncertainly, I began to link my elbow into hers, but she shifted her arm so that—while my arm was indeed linked around hers still—my hand rested atop of hers, which was as stiff and horizontal as the rest of her lower arm. I didn't bother asking why she was leading me like an eighteenth-century gentleman, and merely followed her lead and didn't comment.

There was silence between us the entire way back to the main path. Kurama and Spike spoke quietly with one another ahead of us some ten feet, providing a small break in the quiet, but Kent—who was bringing up the rear and, I suppose, guarding our flank—and Asakari seemed disinterested or unmotivated to have a go at talking.

"So, uh," I began uncertainly, just in the attempt to start conversation, "thanks for helping us."

"It was Lord Spike's orders," Asakari answered in a very business-like manner, apparently not picking up on the fact that I was hoping she'd help feed the chat by speaking more.

"…Oh." Though I was not exactly the most social person, I much preferred talk to silence in a situation like this, when someone I didn't know very well was leading me and simultaneously breaking my 'no-touchy if I don't know you' habits. Thus, I tried again in a somewhat friendlier way with, "Well, I appreciate that you asked if you could go back before, rather than abandoning me without any explanation—"

"Please," she interrupted, not looking toward me. "Lord Spike has forgiven you because he cares for you. I have not found myself to be so charitable, so please refrain from acting as though we are friends or allies."

I blinked once and then looked down, my stomach twisting. I knew uncomfortably what she meant by 'forgiven'—forgiven me for killing his closest ally. Honestly, my guilt over Zerathus had faded nearly completely, and I very rarely thought of the whole happening. I was uncertain how to respond to such coldness, and so I merely followed her in silence, trying to shove from my mind the fact that my hand had started trembling the slightest bit, and the uncomfortable awareness that Asakari would have felt it and known how great an impact her words had had.

"This is where we separate," Spike suddenly said in a louder tone than he had previously been conversing with Kurama in, so that the entire group could hear it. "We must be heading back and making sure that the rogue King has woken and bears no grudge for us deterring its assassination attempt."

"You guys…didn't kill it?" I asked quietly.

"Of course not!" he replied, sounding good-naturedly amused. "Why would we kill our own kind?"

"But—" I began, about to put in something about how he had said they were different species from one another, but Kurama interrupted me.

"Don't worry about it, Ketsue. It will not bother us again."

Asakari's arm suddenly slipped from beneath mine, and I realized suddenly that I had been resting mine against hers almost entirely, as it lowered limply without hers to support it. Embarrassed, I quickly acted as though I had meant to move to cross my arms and entwined them in front of me.

Being that my eyesight was steadily improving and I could see a bit better, now, I noted that the she-cat was near Spike again, and I picked up—again, uncomfortably—that she was eager to be away from me. _She must hate me a lot,_ I considered miserably, looking away from Asakari.

"Good day, Ketsue," Spike said to me, apparently as a goodbye even though a normal person would have likely used 'good day' as a form of 'hello'. "I hope to see you again soon—and good luck with getting Hiei back."

For whatever reason, I felt touched that Spike had decided to use Hiei's name rather than calling him 'your demon'. I could only muster a, "Thank you," in response, though, before they were gone.

"Where—?"

"Up," Kurama explained, pointing toward a rift-tear I had not previously noticed.

Nodding, I lowered my gaze back to where the fox had been standing, only to find he had set off once again. "But—!"

"We'll use a different one," he interrupted promptly. Although I realized there was no point in him waiting for me to speak if he already knew what I was going to say, I found myself becoming irritated at his constant interjections. "The one they just left through is for the front gate. The one we seek is somewhat farther back away from Nirvana's stronghold."

"Why?"

"I am needed elsewhere," he told me calmly, "and so I must leave you there. But I will be able to show you better than the shadowcats what is required of you, so you will follow me."

_What is required of me…?_ I wondered, but didn't voice it. He'd explain when we arrived.

My vision was nearly back to normal by then, and thus I knew why our path was familiar to me far quicker than I would have with dimmed eyesight. As I came to the spot that I realized was where I had recognized my "future" and now current self, I found that although curiosity begged me to look back, I could not. I knew that if I turned now, I would see myself, not an hour ago, watching my progress with wide eyes, and for whatever reason, that thought made the hair on my neck stand erect.

"Wise choice," Kurama commented beside me. I didn't bother raising the question of how he knew what I had been considering only seconds before.

Some twenty minutes and a pair of rift-tears later, Kurama held out his arm to stop me from moving forward and said, "A moment, Ketsue." Glancing up at him, I noticed that his eyes were focused ahead of us as he spoke next rather than at me. "When you enter Nirvana's stronghold, you must be very cautious. Although she has many guards, it isn't out of the question that Nirvana would attack you herself without hesitation—or send a higher-level ally of hers to 'greet' you. You must be careful, understand?" When I quickly nodded, he went on, "I am not sure where Hiei is being held—Koenma didn't provide us with that information, and I'm not sure he could have with what limited knowledge he has of the layout of this castle."

It was the first mention of Nirvana's lair being anything other than a 'stronghold,' and thus my eyes drifted sideways to see what Kurama was looking at. Sure enough, it looked very similar to a cliché representation of an ancient Scottish castle to me, though far larger and with demonic stone gargoyles glaring down forbiddingly from the various windows and towers. All of them seemed to watch us with their cold, sightless eyes, scrutinizing us and almost appearing as though they were debating whether to attack or not.

Ignoring my marveling at the magnificent structure, Kurama continued, "I am wary to send you on your own, but being that I have little choice, I will also warn you not to be seen unless absolutely necessary. Stay undetected as long as you can, and even once you are found out, hide whenever the opportunity arises. Avoid any battles you can get out of—and don't take any unnecessary risks."

Staring at him in disbelief, I wondered exactly how he expected me to do that—stealth was not my strongpoint, nor was I particularly concerned about myself at the moment with Hiei currently captured and depending on us.

As though he had read my thoughts, the fox shifted his calculating green eyes to me and said, "They will not be foolish enough to kill Hiei—don't worry about him. Just worry about _finding_ him, and even then, try not to rush into battle without a plan. If you can, talk to him without their knowledge before acting; I'm sure he will have an idea if he's been given time to consider one."

Dread prickled at me as I wondered exactly what Kurama meant with the use of 'if', and his grave expression gave no comfort to my suspicions that Hiei could be in more danger than Kurama was choosing to let on. Nonetheless, I only nodded mutely again to show him that I had understood all that he had said.

"Don't forget any of that, Ketsue." He was preparing to leave, now; I could tell it by his tone. "Be careful, and stick to the shadows."

"And avoid the guards and fights," I added quietly, attempting to show him that I had taken in his warnings while simultaneously trying to distract myself from the horrid things I was imagining could be happening to Hiei right then.

He nodded again, with that same chilling, almost dark expression on his face. Then, surprisingly, he offered me a gentle smile and said, "Good luck."

And he was gone.

It took me a moment for me to force myself to look back toward the castle, my dread taking advantage of the silence to once again creep up on me. _What could have been so important that he left me alone for it?_ I wondered bitterly. _I would think Hiei, at least, would be more important to Kurama than whatever else Koenma needed him for…_

But I knew such thoughts would not help me at all, and resignedly set off at a run toward the stronghold.

It crossed my mind when I realized that there were few guards around that the shadowcats must have already been through. If that was the case, though, why weren't there signs of it minus the lax in security?

_Because they must have thought the same way as Kurama_, I considered, and ducked out of the way as I sensed a guard at the last moment. _Damn, damn, damn! I am _not_ cut out for this stealthy crap!_ I much preferred just fighting the enemy, not hiding from them—but I trusted Kurama's judgment, and the shadowcats'. Thus, I suppressed my demonic aura as best I could. I had been out of practice of that sort of thing for a while, and there was no way I could risk going into my human form just to keep my energy from being detected; a human's scent would be more potent than a demon's, anyway, and far more out of place as well.

I was able to slink around several guards before I was forced to kill the first. I did it as quietly as I could, though seeing as how I had decided to dispatch of him because he noticed me and made an awful ruckus noting it aloud, I was not surprised to find several others in the vicinity investigate me as well. After that, I opted to pay better attention to be sure I stayed well out of the way of any of the guards; a few dead were not hard to hide, but if _all_ the security suddenly went missing, I'd have a good bit of trouble trying to keep my invasion a secret.

When I was within the final two hundred feet of the castle, I crouched particularly low and glowered about. There were a couple of demons heading off in opposite directions of the gate, but none in the direct path I would need to take. _So if I hurry…_ I decided to try to, at least. Streaking across the last several yards, I came within twenty feet of the castle, _positive_ I had made it in safely—

—When a new demon guard appeared from nowhere, brandishing a sword that he wasted no time in shoving into my stomach.

_Smooth, Ketsue_, I thought as I winced, though I slashed off the demon's head before I moved to retrieve the sword in my gut. _Charge blindly in. Yeah, that's _exactly_ what he needs from you right now._

I poured healing energy into the wound as I pulled the blade out, hoping it would stop the bleeding before any other demons could catch the scent.

Ducking behind the nearest stone post—as several were lining the way to the stronghold, as though attempting to make the path seem more welcoming—I closed my eyes and clenched my jaw. _I'm never gonna make it in_, I thought despairingly to myself. _I'm going in without a plan, not listening to Kurama's advice, and I'm trying to go through the freakin' _front gate_ while also trying not to be seen. I suck at this._

"Ketsue," came a familiar, snide voice, "what are you doing? You're failing miserably so far at this, unless your version of a 'rescue' is hiding in plain sight right at the front of the enemy's base."

I stared disbelieving up into Hiei's cold crimson eyes. "But…Kurama said you were—!"

"Yes, well, whatever Kurama told you is of no consequence now," he replied, not allowing me to finish. Then, suddenly and quite randomly, he drew his katana from its sheath at his belt and brandished it before him. "Care for a spar?"

I didn't even make the attempt to reason with him. I had seen from demonstrations during the dark tournament that he would not be deterred from sparring, no matter how out of place or inconvenient. Thus, I merely summoned my metallic energy sword—which I had not used in so very long—and blocked his initial slash.

"Not exactly the most fitting place for a spar, is it?" I asked flatly, though I could barely hold back my relieved grin. So, coming here was a waste of time after all, if all he was going to do was ask for a spar right outside the gates. _All that worrying for nothing..._

I evaded a thrust toward my collarbone, weaving beneath a follow-through punch and whipping my sword toward Hiei's midsection, expecting him to block as he always did…But he didn't. I thought I was imagining things for a moment. Surely Hiei, of all people, would be able to dodge or block such a rudimentary attack? Yet, there he was with my sword pierced through his back, regarding me with a stunned, pained look on his face…

Sure, I always aimed to harm him, but I can't say I ever intended to. "I-I…" I stared a moment longer, having no idea what to say, then cried, "Oh my God! Why didn't you dodge?!"

Suddenly the feigned look of pain on his face was dropped and he started _laughing_. Like it was funny that I'd just—

But then, as it always did, it hit me that—duh—that wasn't Hiei and I had, in fact, just stabbed a transformed Nirvana. That thought was a much more welcome one, though I doubted that with all her shape-shifting ability that she would have allowed any vitals to be hit or to have even allowed herself to get any sort of mildly-serious injury. Sure enough, as she shifted back to her own form, the wound moved and replaced itself on the side of her stomach, barely a paper cut-thick graze.

"Oh, that was grand!" she cried with a positively delighted countenance. "Really, Ketsue-dearest, I _wish_ you could have seen the horror on your face…"

Trembling with rage, I chose not to respond.

Nirvana, not bothered in the slightest by my silence, merely swept my katana aside carelessly and went on, "It was even better than that look you had when Murtur and I charmed you—brilliant!"

Now that she had provided me with an excuse to try and push the mental image of me nearly killing Hiei—though of course it had merely appeared to be him, I was still shaken—I glared steely at her and grabbed the topic of the charm quickly. "Why did you even _bother_," I asked, "if you knew how short-lived the charm was?"

"Because," Nirvana told me plainly, with the sort of exasperation a parent uses with a child after they've tried to explain the same thing over and over again, "it would buy me at least a _little_ time. After all, you couldn't tell them where Hiei was or how you were separated if you could not speak normally enough to be understood. I hadn't counted on that damned kitsune being there…"

"Or counted on the fact that I didn't know where Hiei was anyway," I added flatly.

She considered it a moment and then grinned toothily. "True, now that you mention it. You _wouldn't _have known because you were _oh_ so obedient in listening to my consent charm."

I had thought Nirvana would be annoyed to realize a flaw in her plan, but she just used the opportunity to annoy _me_. Arguing with her seemed about as winnable as arguing with Hiei.

I expected her to attack again, though of course this time in her own form, but she merely smiled with severe false kindness before she indicated the castle. "I'm sorry, I interrupted your infiltration attempt, didn't I? My apologies. Though I must say, using the front gate is a bold move indeed…" She turned around, not seeming to notice my disbelieving gaze following her as she casually retreated. "Oh, by the way, don't worry about being seen. The guards at the front are switching just now—better hurry!" And then she vanished.

I didn't need to be told that Nirvana being helpful was a blatant sign of a trap. Then again, this entire _mission_ seemed one big trap; after all, why else would they capture Hiei _alive_?

Still, even if this was indeed a trap, I had little choice but to walk into it. I couldn't just leave Hiei there, could I? Besides, Kurama and the others were counting on me as well—I had to try.

It seemed that getting into the stronghold would be the easy part. As Nirvana's hint had suggested, there were no guards immediately inside the castle, and the hall was clear. I could sense unfamiliar demonic energies approaching, however, and knew that I had to hurry. Sprinting down the entryway hall, I had leapt up a ridiculously long-seeming, thirty-foot-wide flight of stairs before I found the first turn to duck into, a place where I could not be spotted by the oncoming guards. Though, as I glanced sideways and caught sight of another being standing a hundred or so yards from me, already watching me and drawing a golden-hilted katana from its sheath, I realized not being seen would be very hard.

The demon must have been seven feet tall, at least; shaggy black hair fell about his face and into his pale, piercing eyes. He was astoundingly good-looking…and somehow familiar.

"You…" I whispered softly, narrowing my eyes at him and taking a step closer, barely aware I had done it.

He watched me a moment with a sort of wariness before he squinted at me abruptly as though something had clicked within his mind, and I knew he had gotten the same sense of déjà vu I'd felt when I first set eyes upon him, had felt the same, seemingly misplaced familiarity looking into my face…And suddenly his eyes widened as though he were stunned, and he sprang back from me, his sword lowered as though he had no further intent to battle me. And sure enough, when I took another step toward him he turned down the corridor he'd come from and took off quickly without a single word.

Rushing to follow him, I skidded to a stop when I came to the long, empty hallway he'd ran off toward, disappointed. _Who the hell was that…?_ And in the back of my mind, I knew that for whatever reason that he had not run from fear of me—he had run from fear that he'd be forced to _hurt_ me. _Why do I know him?_ But no answer quieted the string of questions that assaulted my mind, and I heaved a great sigh as the more pressing query came to mind—Why had he known _me_?

From no where, a sensation close to what I'd felt when I'd seen Chichiro's death thanks to the effects of Hiei's jagan months ago swept over me. My vision was blackened immediately, and I had to struggle to head for the nearest empty room in the hallway; I knew it was empty only because I could not sense any life energy within it.

Leaning up against the wall and sliding the door shut as quietly as I could behind me, I closed my currently blind eyes and waited for whatever flashes of Chichiro's memory were to follow.

As with the first vision-like experience I'd had like this, I first saw a face and nothing else; it belonged to the strangely familiar male demon I'd just encountered. Then, slowly, other details leaked into my perception and I was able to observe the 'scene' properly.

He was standing across from a tall demoness, though compared with him she seemed dwarfed. I recognized her blue fox ears immediately—Chichiro. The _true_ Chichiro, whom I was the reincarnation of, not my yami.

"You really don't remember, do you?" she was whispering in a soft, injured tone.

"Remember _what_, woman?" the demon spat in return. "I've told you—my family was _killed_. You've no right digging up the past like this; I've put all of that behind me, and I'm not going to allow you to just—"

"Why would I lie?" Chichiro cried, a note of desperation in her voice. "Please! I am not your enemy!"

"Any who pose as _her_ are my enemy," he responded coldly. "You defile her memory, coming to me as you are with your wild claims. She's _dead_, and unless you hope me to believe you are some sort of ghost, you may as well give it up now."

Chichiro uttered a somewhat wild laugh, shaking her head disbelievingly. "How can I defile my _own_ memory, huh?"

The male demon opened his mouth to speak, but she interrupted before he could speak.

"How can you not trust your little sister, Keicchirin?"

My consciousness slammed back into my body, away from that fragment of my past life. _Keicchirin…?! My…brother?_

It was true I could not remember anything of him but what I had just seen…and that alone was not as much of a memory as it was a vision of something I _should_ have remembered. So why had this sudden wave of sentimentality swept over me when I considered the word 'brother'? It was like seeing Kurama for the first time in this lifetime and feeling as though we were long lost best friends, a kind of carried-over friendship from my past life. The same thing had happened seeing Tamiko again, as well.

_That's why he looked like that,_ I realized then. _He knew I was Chichiro's reincarnation. But, then, why did he run…?_

Hiei had told me some time back that Keicchirin had killed other possible reincarnates that Chichiro had chosen outside of me, because for whatever reason he believed he knew which would be best for her. Apparently he'd decided on me. So why was he shying away like that?

_Your incompetence _astounds_ me sometimes, my little Hikari-dearest_, drawled my yami's voice.

_I thought you were dormant_, I mentally growled in reply, without much kindness.

_Yes, well, things change._ She paused a moment, but did not allow enough time for me to question why she had suddenly intervened. She answered without my prompting instead. _Keicchirin is under orders from Atenre—isn't it obvious? He would risk harming us if he came anywhere near us. Best to play innocent and act as though he'd never seen us than to try and reunite and end up forced to kill us._

_What do you mean?_ I asked. _Atenre wouldn't have enough of a hold on him to _force_ Keicchirin to kill us, right?_ I had used 'us' rather than 'me' merely because Chichiro's wording had rubbed off on me. Honestly, I had no idea why she had included herself as being a part of me—she rarely did. _And besides, he's working for Nirvana right now if he's here, isn't he?_

To my surprise, Chichiro's loud, cruel cackle of a laugh was what first answered me. Then, _Oh, poor, simple-minded other half of mine, don't you have any scrap of intelligence whatsoever? This so-called 'stronghold' isn't under Nirvana's power—if it was, she would have killed you back there, wouldn't she?_

Now that Chichiro brought it up, if Nirvana had been in charge of the security of this place, she would not have helped me to get in even if it was a trap. _So Atenre's controlling this, then?_

_Of course. And I suspect he's here, too. He has more of a grudge against Hiei than Nirvana anyhow._

Many questions raced through my mind, but I sensed Chichiro slip into dormancy once more a moment before I could ask any of them. A low, irritated sigh spilled my lips at the same time as a frustrated growl rumbled from my throat. _She did that on purpose_, I thought angrily to myself, knowing full well that she had been deliberately unhelpful after whatever point would have presented the opportunity for self-gain. _Though with all of her talk about wanting us both and Hiei to die, I don't know what she could possibly get from helping me now…_

Deciding not to puzzle over my yami's oddities any longer, I stood from where I had been sitting against the wall, and cautiously opened the door back into the hallway. Once sure the coast was clear, I slipped out, lingering a moment just outside the doorway.

_Which way?_ I wondered, then mentally slapped myself. I needed to find Hiei, so I needed to try and sense him. Doing so immediately after the realization came to mind, I caught the faintest trace of his energy and decided quickly that Atenre—or whoever had imprisoned Hiei in the first place—was trying to suppress his aura. Hell, to any other person, they had probably done a good enough job that the fire demon would have been undetectable, but I could sense him better than any other person I knew of. There was no hiding him from me at such a close range.

Recalling Kurama's warning to be careful, alert and not to be seen, I decided to use a trick I hadn't had use for in a long time; in fact, I hadn't used this specific one much at all since the night that Hiei had arrived—my spiritual 'radar'. I picked up energy signals well enough, sure, but I rarely focused enough to see where they were coming from and actively sought out what kinds of energies they were.

Closing my eyes only as long as I dared, I picked out the best path to where Hiei was being held and then set off.

I chose to avoid any demons that I could, and found ways to try and slip past those I had to pass close to. Most times, it worked. The rest of the time, when I was forced to fight, I only had to be careful not to use too much energy, else I could have been detected. Luckily for me, though, most of the guards set in random places about the corridors were lower-class, or at least less intelligent B-class. Only a few A-class were about, and those I avoided entirely.

Suddenly, the faintness of Hiei's energy signal was far more extreme, and then all traces of it disappeared. For a moment I panicked, caught between thinking I'd lost track and thinking that something had happened to him. Then, I merely forced myself to remain calm. _Find him,_ I told myself, commanding my body to keep moving toward where I had last sensed him. _Find him and you can see why you lost his signal._

It was odd to me how placid I was able to make myself, all things considered. I decided it was simply because I'd already been panicked enough over Hiei's capture, and I would not be so easily worked up for an extended time quite so soon.

Although I could not be absolutely positive that it was where I had sensed him, when I silently passed by a massive wooden door with metal bars striped horizontally down its entirety, I oddly felt as though I would find Hiei behind it.

Stopping abruptly, I lingered a moment between the decision to move on or go through the door as instinct told me to. I decided that, because I had yet to experience a time when instinct had proven wrong, to trust my gut, though that was easier said than done. The door was protected with some sort of energy charm, one that was likely hundreds of times stronger than a human lock and which prevented any energy attack from affecting the door at all. Frustrated after several attempts too break in, I just drew back my right leg and, with a massive swing, kicked the door in through brute strength. The lock may have held forever—but the wood of the actual door was a different story.

Darkness yawned before me. I almost stepped forward before I realized that there was not a room immediately after the door, but rather a set of incredibly steep stone stairs that likely led to one. Gingerly taking the first unnerving step, I descended the curved staircase quickly, plunged into unrelenting darkness almost instantly.

I nearly doubled over when I reached the bottom of the staircase, for my eyesight had not entirely adjusted to the dark yet and, having not realized I had gotten past the last step, had tried to step down another and came very close to losing my balance.

I stared for a long moment straight ahead of me, fully aware that I could see little more than a foot ahead of my face. The longer I tried to penetrate the darkness, the darker and more forbidding the room seemed to become.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I decided to try and call upon my other 'yami' for help once more. _Aletta?_ She, having been dormant for so long, was not quick to answer. Only the thoughts of my own mind answered. _Aletta, I need you—where are you?_

_As much as I love to help, dear,_ came her groggy-seeming voice finally, _I'm finding myself a bit offended that you only missed me when you decided you needed my help._

…_Sorry._

_No matter_, she assured me, changed suddenly as though my quick apology had cleared her of all bitterness. _What did you need me for?_

_I can't see a damned thing,_ I told her, exasperated by the fact now that I thought it more clearly and had told someone else. _Can you lend me your night vision?_

_Not even going to let me out, are you?_ she grumbled to me, though relented, _Fine. Take it. But give it back when you're done._

Not having even the faintest of ideas how she expected me to 'give it back,' I quickly agreed. Instantly, my eyes pierced through the darkness with the preciseness of the sharpest of knives.

Glancing about, I recognized exactly what the room was and murmured to myself, "How cliché. A friggin' _dungeon_?"

"Ketsue," greeted a dark, monotonous voice from the depths of the shadows across the room.

Feeling an uncontrolled smile spread across my face, I ran to the inner corner of the enormous bottom floor of the building. Although my vision had improved, it was not quite strong enough to penetrate the deepest corner from which Hiei's voice had issued. There was a stray trail of light from the shattered doorway that now seemed so far away, however, that was shining directly on the sharp red eyes of the fire demon I had been seeking, the eyes that were currently watching me with rapt attention. "Hiei—" I began, but was cut off.

"Why did you come?" There was a guarded manner in which he spoke; did I hear a note of resentment in his voice?

Startled, I said in a small, fairly hurt tone, "To rescue you. Koenma told us you'd been—"

"I didn't need to be rescued, you prat," he told me scathingly, an odd mixture of coldness and something else in his face. It was altogether the funniest and most aggravating thing Hiei had ever said(1).

Feeling my own face growing hot, I spat, "Well, maybe if I'd known you be so _welcome_ to my help I'd have not tried at all."

"What makes you think I would not have preferred that?" he snapped in return.

"Gee, I dunno, the fact that most people _care_ if they survive or not?"

"And you think for some reason I value my life over yours?" he snarled back to me with the same coldness as before.

I tried to think of a comeback for the split second before I registered what he'd said; when it connected, I started, stunned into silence even though my mouth was already open and ready to supply a biting retort.

Our conversation did not need continuing anyhow, as seconds later Hiei's cool, crimson gaze swept to the side as the remains of the dungeon door were suddenly cast down the long staircase with a resounding _crash!_

Silence entered the room only moments before quiet, deliberate-sounding footfalls told that someone else was heading down the stone steps and toward us.

It was too late to hide, I knew, and so I only stepped closer to Hiei, putting myself in front of him even though I was still several feet away from him

The figure descending the steps was tall; I could tell that even though so far the stranger was a mere silhouette. He—as the figure was indeed masculine—was not quite the height of Keicchirin, but he was not far off and was a couple of feet taller than me still.

He stopped just before he hit the bottom step. "So _there_ you are, reincarnation of Chichiro Ketsueki," addressed a firm, surly voice from before me. Eyes narrowing against a sudden onslaught of light issuing from various places along the stone walls of the room, I stared toward where a tall demon with waist-length, blue-black hair stood, regarding me with cold amusement.

My eyes had never rested on him in my lifetime…But Chichiro's had. Fear dawned within me, crawling up my spine in the form of a cold shiver, and as I met the intense gaze of the newcomer, I whispered his name in quiet horror as I recognized him without a hint of a doubt: "Atenre…"

* * *

**Authoress's Note:** It may be shorter than usual (Not by too much, though), but I still really liked this chapter. Not entirely sure why. I think my writing style may have changed a bit lately…Gotta say I'm pretty sure I like it more. XD

1—_Somebody_ has been reading too much Harry Potter. -Sweatdrop- I admit, chances of Hiei saying "prat" are slim…but it's still an amusing thought.


	37. Imprisoned

**Disclaimer:** Neither Hiei or YuYu Hakusho are mine.

**Claimer:** Chichiro and Ketsue are mine, Kaze is BritKit, Aria is FoxWitch. While not all the characters are mine, all writing, storylines and concepts in this fanfiction (Save any YYH references) are. This includes Nirvana, Spike, all shadowcats, the shadowcat species, Escque, Mahdaegrahs/entities, scorpios etcetera.

* * *

"_So _there_ you are, reincarnation of Chichiro Ketsueki," addressed a firm, surly voice from before me. Eyes narrowing against a sudden onslaught of light issuing from various places along the stone walls of the room, I stared toward where a tall demon with waist-length, blue-black hair stood, regarding me with cold amusement._

_My eyes had never rested on him in my lifetime…But Chichiro's had. Fear dawned within me, crawling up my spine in the form of a cold shiver, and as I met the intense gaze of the newcomer, I whispered his name in quiet horror as I recognized him without a hint of a doubt: "Atenre…"_

A surprised, but pleased, grin spread across his face. "So, you recognize me even now?" It was odd to me that there was truthfully very little cruelty in his countenance; he actually seemed more inquisitive than anything.

In the back of my mind, one word came to me to describe exactly what Atenre seemed to me: _Psychotic._

It took me a moment to notice he had walked in flanked by Nirvana. I had not heard her footsteps, but she was standing behind him a couple of feet looking calmly smug as usual.

Hiei, behind me, made a short, disgruntled noise. I didn't risk chancing a look at him, though I badly wanted to. Forcing my eyes ahead of me, I watched with mingled fear and fascination as Atenre regarded me with cool curiosity.

An odd expression flashed across Atenre's features for a moment. At first, I could not think of what it reminded me of, and then his face was briefly replaced in my memory by Hiei's—when he was using his jagan. Atenre's bare forehead was blank of anything of the sort, but before I could even properly pose the question in my own mind, a second voice entered it to explain:

_He can read minds, Ketsue,_ Hiei told me. _Don't think of fighting back. Just wait._

_For what?_ I thought back desperately, wondering how he expected to keep this conversation private if what he said was true.

_For me._

_But what can you do? You're just as—_

_Don't worry about what I couldn't do before—I can now. _And, wordlessly, we agreed upon what he meant—'_I can do it now because I have something to protect._'

It was a nice thought, but quickly silenced. As though she, too, could hear our conversation, Nirvana moved forward for me as soon as Hiei stopped speaking. The skin on the palm of her hand suddenly twisted, lengthening and popping off, no longer attached to her body; the spot where it had been looked as normal as ever, though now she gripped in her hand what looked like a short, straight, screw-like animal horn.

In what seemed to be a sort of retaliation for Hiei's mental declaration for me not to worry anymore, she drove it into the flesh just below my left collarbone and beside my shoulder, ramming it deep into my ribs.

Even before she had moved, I had been aware of the brief sensation of a quick and somewhat sloppy charm being placed over my body, preventing me from moving away.

I clenched my jaws against an outcry as she twisted her weapon, though a strangled noise of pain still slipped through my gritted teeth. It may have originally been her skin, but it was now quite hard enough to injure me effectively.

"That is enough, my dear Nirvana," he told her simply, though for the life of me I couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or not in the way he had addressed her.

Her chocolate gaze flicked toward him briefly before she shoved the weapon deeper into my flesh, and although she had minimized the movement of it so that it would not have been obvious what she'd done, I could not contain my outcry this time, thus Atenre knew anyhow.

"_Nirvana_," he snarled dangerously, not so collectedly anymore.

She submitted quickly this time, yanking her blade free in one fluid stroke.

As my eyes rolled back the slightest from the sudden assault of even _worse_ pain now that the weapon was no longer protruding from my upper ribs, I found mild grim humor in the awareness that I almost wished that Atenre had allowed her to keep putting the blade in farther. It had been becoming numb very slowly, but now as blood oozed freely from the cone-shaped injury, the pain had come back full-force. I cut off my moan of pain as soon as I realized it was I who was making it, biting my lip and squeezing my eyes shut, trying my best to ignore the urge to cry out. I had not been quite soon enough, however—Atenre still smirked lightly, as I saw when I opened my eyes again. I was distracted from my anger at the fact that the bastard was enjoying my pain when I caught sight of Hiei's expression—he almost looked sick.

_He can't do anything to help me,_ I thought to myself, _and he knows it._ As I came to think of it, aside from times of anger, whenever Hiei was unable to help me he always seemed in the worst shape. Never mind when he was hurt—I'd already noted that he didn't care about his own pain, unless I was feeling it. But when I was being injured or suffering from the effects of my injuries and he could do nothing about it, it was something else entirely. _He hates not being in control_, I realized, finding an odd amusement in that he was so similar to me. In the next moment, my vision and mind were again clouded by the blood loss from my new wound and my thought train dropped.

Nirvana's small voice forced my awareness to return. It seemed, despite her quietness, that she was trying to uphold the illusion that she was still as confident as ever. "Apologies, milord. I merely thought that such would be the best way to obtain…information from her. She is a stubborn one."

"Indeed," Atenre agreed immediately, though he'd never met me. I figured that meant he was basing his assumption on experience with Chichiro. "Perhaps that idea holds some water—but for now just place her somewhere so she doesn't pass out from blood loss, would you?"

I was promptly ushered to a stiff, uncomfortable chair that seemed not to have been used in ages, judging by the buildup of dust. Briefly I thought of an old Hanna Barbara cartoon and how there were often skeletons of old prisoners still sitting in chairs such as these, which were hastily brushed away to make room for a new one in the form of an unsuspecting guest. With mild humor I wondered it there had been the skeleton of some other unfortunate demon sitting upon these dusty wooden boards before myself.

Although I supposed it was not unexpected, it seemed out of place to me that I had an odd sensation of drunkenness whilst sitting on that chair with my wrists tied together before me, waiting for Atenre to make his move or order Nirvana to make one for him. I figured easily enough it was probably the blood loss Atenre had mentioned, though I honestly could not tell if I was still bleeding or not any longer. I was only aware that the new injury Nirvana had so kindly just given me felt very raw, that the cold of the dungeon had made it sting enough that it was now throbbing painfully but that the pain was less sharp and that my lightheadedness from hitting the tree had started to come back. The two wounds in my stomach—one from the demon who had stabbed me just outside this fortress and one left over from mine and Hiei's last mission—had begun to ache as well.

"Now, Nirvana," Atenre spoke up finally, "you mentioned 'information'?" It had seemed like an eternity since anyone had last spoken.

"I did, milord," she agreed, sounding in her submission quite unlike the Nirvana I knew.

"Wouldn't you say that if you are seeking that, then, that Hiei would be the sensible choice?"

"I suppose," the ram demoness conceded quietly.

Atenre grinned at her. For the first time, the kind of malice I had expected from him entered his eyes. "So, you were only making excuses to harm Chichiro's reincarnate rather than honestly hoping to gain knowledge from her?" Looking alarmed, Nirvana opened her mouth to speak, but Atenre swiftly cut of her off. "No matter. It was a good idea anyhow."

Nirvana may have been relieved, but I was far from it. I had just noticed, for the first time, that I could now see Hiei from where I was sitting. He, too, was bound to a seat, though the back of his consisted of the wall behind him, and the shackles that bound him were set into the stone. His position was not what alarmed me—it was the short dagger I had just noticed stabbed into the ground beside where he was seated, which now rose as though of its own accord and positioned itself directly above Hiei's knee.

"I know you possess the jagan, Hiei," Atenre said, acting as though he had not noticed the little blade move. "I haven't forgotten—my memory of when you aided in killing me is still fresh."

"Fascinating," Hiei growled back monotonously, appearing far calmer toward the knife hovering above his skin than I. He had glanced to it once when it initially moved, but the surprise has quickly left his face and he had glared toward Atenre once more.

"Indeed," Atenre concurred once more, as if he thought Hiei to be serious in his comment. "I've brought this up, so you know, in order to offer you the chance now—open you mind and let down your jagan's barrier, and I will not have to resort to this. In fact, I will not touch you…or Chichiro's reincarnation."

To my astonishment, Hiei didn't even flinch at that. Instead, he smirked. "Do your worst."

"To you?" Atenre replied easily, not put off at all. "Or to her?" The little dagger moved to face me only briefly before switching back toward Hiei.

"Either," Hiei responded without any scrap of fear or concern. "Though I'd advise against trying her—she doesn't know anything. Lucky for her, my urge for self preservation hasn't been in tact for quite some time, else I wouldn't have even thought to deter you."

I honestly couldn't tell whether he was saying that just to alert Atenre to the fact or because he was disguising his way of protecting me. Atenre didn't seem able to either. "Very well. I'll try you first. Too bad—torture really isn't much my style, even if I do concede that it is necessary every once in a long while."

_Torture._ The word suddenly made my heart pound, even despite the fact I'd already considered what Atenre intended to do. It was as if saying it bluntly forced me to acknowledge what I had known since the conversation started.

I flinched immediately when the dagger moved forward, squeezing my eyes shut—there was no way I could watch that be done to Hiei. In fact, I had begun to consider ways to persuade Atenre to leave him be, to try and convince him that I knew something even though I doubted I had any of the 'information' he wanted…But I realized in the next second when my flinch became one of pain that I didn't need to.

_The Ofuda_, I thought, suddenly wildly happy despite the new pain—surprisingly large for such a small cut—of my leg. _The shackles Hiei's in must disrupt his ability to use energy,_ I thought, my mind rushing with realization now. _He can't disengage the Ofuda._ It didn't explain why he seemed to have been able to keep his own disengaged, but I didn't bother thinking the mechanics of the situation just then.

"Oh!" Atenre's voice broke into my thoughts. "No wonder you weren't worried! You've picked up healing powers since we last fought, haven't you? Ah, this will take much longer than I thought."

I was surprised to find that Hiei was looking quite bewildered at his own leg when I opened my eyes from my flinch. _He doesn't know the Ofuda is disengaged…?_ And, luckily—and not surprisingly seeing as how my pant legs were still in tact, unlike Hiei's—neither of them seemed to have noticed the transferal of his wound to my body yet—and I prayed they wouldn't. Then I could protect Hiei; then, finally, _I_ could be the one protecting him, and not the other way around.

"I wonder how strong this new ability of yours is…?"

For the first time since my realization that the Ofuda's power had returned, I felt dread biting at me as I figured Atenre's new intention: make the wounds worse and see how far he could go before they stopped disappearing.

Sure enough, a far more direct-seeming gash sliced across my leg, seconds after it had been applied to Hiei's. The first one seemed like a paper cut, and this a slash from a razor.

As the next one began, again with much more pressure than the first and slowly inching up my leg toward my thigh (And I guessed, later on, my midsection), I was suddenly aware of the fact that Hiei was watching me intently—waiting for a sign I was feeling his pain. Determinedly, I forced back a wince (Which proved quite difficult) and feigned interest in where Hiei's wounds were going as well, mimicking Atenre.

The sham was short-lived. Atenre, recognizing that even this newer pressure level would not leave even a scratch on Hiei for more than a moment, had decided to face the dagger down more like one would when stabbing instead of slashing, no longer horizontally like before. This I could not pretend didn't hurt—tears came to my eyes even before I was unable to bite my lip against a small noise of pain.

I sensed Atenre's head swivel toward me. Forcing myself to open my eyes and look to him, I found that he was watching me with extreme fascination now; the blade had stopped moving to make new cuts on Hiei. "…What's this?" Atenre said finally.

"That's right!" Nirvana cried enthusiastically. "I forgot to tell you, milord—the girl fashioned some sort of paper charm that switched all pain and injury inflicted upon Hiei's body onto her own."

"Interesting," Atenre murmured, still staring at me unblinkingly with wide eyes, not looking as though he minded at all that Nirvana had not mentioned this before.

Without looking away from me, he flicked his wrist briefly and the knife above Hiei's leg once more attempted fruitlessly to injure the fire demon.

I whimpered lightly, trying my best to ignore the fascinated look on Atenre's face as the deep, slow slash instantaneously transferred to my leg and became my pain before Hiei could even feel anything. "Interesting," the demon lord murmured to himself once again.

But then a most curious thing happened when I flinched automatically against the next cut as the blade lowered: I felt nothing. Daring to open an eye, my gaze landed on a fresh cut just below Hiei's hip bone, already beginning to soak his pant leg in dark crimson, and it didn't connect for a second what had just transpired. "_No!_" I cried immediately when I recognized what he had done, ignoring my previous assumption that the chains had disrupted his ability to disengage the Ofuda. "_Don't you dare!_"

But Hiei just glared fiercely at me in silence without the slightest indication on his face that he had noticed the now freely-bleeding cut on his leg.

Atenre's gaze flicked between us, from Hiei to me, and then he also noticed the fact that the newest incision had not transferred. A wicked smile crept across his face. "I _see_," he muttered, utterly captivated by Hiei's decision; more so than the Ofuda's initial effect, in fact.

"Don't you see what he's doing?" I cried desperately at Atenre, knowing already Hiei would not be reasoned with. I didn't bother considering then that it was stupid to hope Atenre would stop just because Hiei was now taking the wounds, seeing as how the fire demon had been his initial target anyhow. "Stop doing it to him! It isn't working anymore!"

But the demon lord only afforded me a mildly psychotic, curious stare and asked, "Why stop, now?"

"He won't crack!" I spat, the feeling of desperation deepening even as I felt the slightest flutter of automatic pride at Hiei's strength. "He wouldn't _ever_ crack and give you anything! Don't waste your time—"

"Oh, I knew that already," Atenre replied, and the blade lingering just above Hiei's flesh moved upward toward his midriff; at the base of his ribs, another slash was made, though the fire demon only flinched briefly and otherwise seemed to take no notice of the pain. "But, I see now that my initial tactic would have been pointless also—the only way _you_ would crack is if _he_ is in pain. I believe this is the best approach, don't you?"

Tears blurred my vision. For once—just this _once_—in such a long time, I had felt like I had been of use to Hiei, and that my Ofuda was not worthless. It had saved him from pain, just for a moment, and I had been able to ignore my failure to rescue him because of it. But now? Now he was being physically tortured on my account because I had been unable to save him when I was supposed to, unable to stop myself from rushing in like a silly kid and ruining everything.

There was nothing else for me to do.

"Fine!" I cried weakly, pushing down my mental barrier the slightest bit. Immediately, I felt Atenre's presence in my mind, shoving down and overwhelming the rest of my mental defenses violently. It was an entirely new kind of pain I was not used to, though it was not severe.

"She doesn't—" Hiei began, though the blade had automatically continued to make the next incision on his torso and his voice wavered the slightest bit briefly as it cut into his flesh. "—know anything, I told you that already. Don't bother."

Atenre smirked back at Hiei. "Well, I know you won't give me anything, no matter whether I torture her or you, so I might as well check the mind that was willingly given, aye? It will take a while for me to sort through all of her…knowledge, however." He yanked me away from the chair I'd been kept in suddenly, forcing me toward another door at the end of the room.

I struggled against him, throwing a glance back at Hiei and finding with relief that the dagger had finally stopped moving; it was stabbed into the ground unmoving once more. "Hiei—!"

The fire demon grimaced as he watched me, though I was not sure whether it was from frustration at being unable to aid me or from the various injuries he was now sporting. He did not try to say anything back to me, however, and dropped his blood-red gaze away from me as he gritted his teeth and the heavy wooden door soon slammed shut, barring him from my sight.

* * *

I could find no grounds to feel guilty for wallowing in self-pity. It was a consideration I had the second night lying against the cold, stone wall in the corner of my own, private dungeon room, not feeling motivated to open my eyes. I was cold, tired, lonely and hungry—I hadn't eaten anything since the human world, and although my demon form rarely got hungry, I had found myself ravenous after what had transpired in the dungeon where Hiei was being kept. To add insult to injury—or rather the other way around—I had not gotten any form of bandage or chance for bandaging myself since I'd been thrown into this room on my own; I was quite certain that the gashes on my leg and the wound below my collarbone, in the very least, were infected.

Thoughts of escape were not crossing my mind very often anymore. It had been less than forty-eight hours, but I had already been thwarted in such a way that made me feel foolish doing anything but submitting to Atenre.

Initially upon being brought into my current location, Atenre had done nothing to me but put me in the room and shut the door.

I hadn't expected it to be so easy. After all, it's only logical to assume that the "bad guys" weren't quite as stupid as they were on TV and wouldn't leave their captives with the means to escape. Namely, leaving me alone with my hands tied in _front_ of me.

As soon as I could tell by sound alone that Atenre was far enough away, I had lifted my hands to my mouth, working as fast as I had been able to chew through the rope. It was thicker than I'd originally thought, and after only about thirty seconds I had tasted blood and knew by the pain in my mouth that my gums were bleeding, but hell if I'd cared about them.

It proved to be more tedious of work than I'd considered before, but about halfway through the rope I'd simply yanked it apart rather than trying to chew through its entirety. I'd still had enough strength then, not so sapped by my insomnia, hunger and infection.

I limped as silently as I could manage toward the door, which thankfully was on the same floor and not up an enormous staircase like Hiei's, and peered out into the bit of the hallway I could see through the metal bars. Thinking it was safe, I had lifted my hands to shoot an energy attack at it—but Atenre's face had suddenly shown before the door, and I felt a far stronger demonic power suppress my own aura without any problem.

I was thrown backward when the door was cast open swiftly, and I disgusted myself by backing away from Atenre as he advanced. He spoke only when I had pinned myself against the far wall. "You poor little wench—you really believed you could get away?"

The softness of his cooing tone made my gut wrench, and I found I could not look at him. Angry at myself for the tears I felt prick my eyes, I bit my lip and attempted to force myself not to cry. I had to escape.

"You're thinking of _him_, aren't you? You want to be sure he's alright." I felt his hand grip my chin suddenly, and my face was wrenched to the side and I had no choice but to look at him as he tipped my head back. "A word, if I may: Worry about yourself. For your little plan has failed." Even if I realized he could read my thoughts, I could not help it if my mind began to run with more ways of possible escape, more ways to get out of the situation and make sure Hiei was alright. But Atenre's cruel laughter interrupted those thoughts. "Look at them run. Like little mice, these ideas of yours, but I assure you, all will fail." He released me, and I threw my head sideways and allowed my hair to run into my sight and bar my expression from his. "Keep trying, little one. I enjoy thwarting your plans."

He had stopped dead, suddenly, and he turned. "Hey, now…" Dreading his reasoning even though I could not think of a single reason for him to suddenly be so foreboding, I watched him throw a narrow-eyed glance over his shoulder at me. "I know how reincarnation works—you should not have known I could read minds before I spoke…but you did." For whatever reason, there was anger in his eyes even as he grinned toothily at me, pivoting his body to face me as well. He crouched down beside me once again. "Who have you been speaking to?"

I was terrified. I had no idea why, as I did not fear the pain I knew he could inflict on me, but I was scared out of my wits simply by having him in such close proximity to me. "It was Kurama!" I cried, unable to think straight save for to protect Hiei, and something told me he intended to do far worse to the person who had informed me of his mind-reading ability than he would have inflicted on me before he forced the information from my mind.

He regarded me coldly for a long moment, his gaze never moving, never twitching even the slightest from glaring straight into my eyes. At last, he seemed satisfied, and a smirk returned to his face. "It's amazing those who one will betray when forced with such a desperate situation," he commented. "Dear Kurama will be so hurt to know you thought of him first."

And he was gone.

Horrified at myself and what I had done despite the fact Atenre had seen through it, I buried my face in my hands and sobbed once before I realized my eyes were dry. I had been too shaken to even cry properly.

"Oh, fuck," I whispered to myself. "We're all going to die…" And for the first time in my life, I felt truly hopeless. Atenre was too powerful to handle—he had captured Hiei so simply, had taken me hostage so easily and forced information from me with the same simplicity that he had displayed for forcing me to betray Kurama for something he didn't do, even though the act he had been accused of had not been any true crime.

That had been the first night, directly after my failed attempt to help Hiei.

The following morning, Nirvana had decided to have a go at tormenting me, though not for any true reason beyond just dampening my already pitiful mood.

"Ketsue," she had greeted, "would you like to know why else this situation is your fault?"

I didn't even have the will to mutter a sarcastic response.

Nirvana was certainly not disheartened by this. "If it weren't for you, your dearest Hiei would not have been so easy to capture." I blankly lifted my eyes to her face. "Want to know why?"

_Don't make this worse,_ I thought miserably, but said nothing aloud. It wouldn't have helped.

"I'll show you," Nirvana went on, supporting what I had just considered.

A small, purple jagan suddenly formed on her brow, as I had seen happen during the Dark Tournament; it seemed like ages ago when I had last seen her imitation of Hiei's astoundingly useful tool.

I felt her jagan probe in my mind briefly before a memory that was not my own suddenly unfolded.

"I won't be so easy to convince," Hiei was telling Nirvana.

The words, "Oh, I think you will be," were formed by my mouth. The voice was unfamiliar, and I realized that it had seemed to be my mouth saying it merely because I was seeing someone else's memory, from their awareness.

"What are you going to threaten me with this time?" Hiei sneered. _This time?_ I wondered. "Ketsue has proven she can kick your ass quite effectively. Must be nice to be able to shape shift and hide all those scars, I would think."

Nirvana gritted her teeth at that, causing me to ponder what scars Hiei meant. _Perhaps from the Dragon…?_

"Yes, well," Nirvana spoke up after a moment, smiling cruelly, "she cannot handle Mutur so easily, no matter how much she's improved."

Hiei merely continued to grin at her with that arrogance I loved him so much for. "I'd get there fast enough to kill him and destroy you in the left over time before a single scale on his hide could touch her."

"Is that so?" Nirvana replied smoothly, not feeling any less encouraged, as I could sense her emotion through this memory as well. "Now that I've ruled out any external attempts, perhaps I should move to the internal."

Hiei was quiet a moment, but he never lost face even as he asked, "Internal?"

"Yes." Nirvana was delighted, now, as though she had interpreted Hiei's momentary silence as a cry of defeat. "I placed a consent charm on her earlier, of course with Murtur's help."

Hiei's smirk faltered finally, and for the first time a consideration of surrender seemed to appear in his eyes. It didn't matter to me that I was seeing the past; I still thought in a frustrated tone, _Don't do it._

"I could have her kill herself any time I like," Nirvana went on, positively beaming through her malicious look now. "It's possible through the consent charm for any who have considered suicide, you know, and being raised human—oh, and being around _you_—it's hard to imagine she hasn't."

I knew he was thinking of the same instance as I when she said that—when I had almost killed myself before Hiei and I separated after my vision a couple of months back.

I was not able to witness his reply, however, as I was pulled back to the cold, stone cell to find Nirvana smirking down at me, looking very pleased with herself. "Just something else to mull over before Atenre decides to finish you," she had said in a cheery voice, then had left.

In the present, I uttered a small sigh, marveling that I did not even seem to have the power to heave a large breath anymore. My eyelids felt glued together.

"Kurama, my friend!" I heard Atenre cry suddenly from the hallway.

The glue melted, and my eyes shot open.

Atenre's voice went on, "You wouldn't be here to rescue Ketsue, would you?"

My eyes found Kurama lingering just outside the doorway, one hand on the metal bars and another out of sight, likely picking the lock. I was briefly surprised I had not heard or sensed him before.

The fox demon did not look to me, nor did he answer Atenre's cheerful tone. The demon lord merely went on: "You're being astoundingly careless for one of your caliber—I would have pegged you for one to be more careful than _her_."

I could not see him, but I knew he had pointed a finger toward the door to my cell.

"She tried to betray you for something you didn't do, you know."

"She'd never been in a situation like this," Kurama replied calmly, speaking for the first time. He had not seemed in the slightest bit angry or hurt at hearing what Atenre had just informed him of. "She is not to blame for that." His voice was stiff with cold rage as he went on darkly, "You are."

"Ah, well." Atenre loved the sound of his own voice, I realized. "No matter, hmm? What's more important now—" The false, cheery note was dropped from his voice, and it suddenly took a darker turn just as Kurama's had. "—is stopping you, which I assume should be just as easy as stopping your other two friends."

Even through this whole situation, I found myself relieved that he'd only said 'two'—the shadowcats must have gotten away fine, without issue.

"I think you'll find only disappointment in that assumption," Kurama told the demon lord coldly, though now a very uncharacteristic, sadistic smile spread across his face. Perhaps, I thought, this was a remnant of Yoko coming through.

I was about to enter I-feel-ever-so-useless-right-now mode when suddenly the wooden door at the front of my cell was wrenched off its hinges as Kurama, found out, decided to use a more direct approach than picking the lock. He had no reason to be quiet now, did he?

At first, I thought he had ripped it off with his bare hands, but then I noticed his rose whip strung about the entirety of the door like binds. It had wrapped about even the inside of the door, having snaked through the metal bars at the top and come back out beneath the door through the little inch-high crack.

Forcing myself to stand, I shoved back frustration at my own weakness on my feet. My legs _killed_—and I was expected to fight like this? I wondered then, for the very first time, how Chichiro had lived out her several hundred-year-long life doing this sort of thing every single day; I had been doing it for less than six months, and I was already feeling worn down by it. Yet, at the same time, I could think of no kind of life that would satisfy me more.

"Don't consider it," Kurama warned in a very Hiei-like tone as I lifted my hand to summon an energy sword. "Go find Hiei, will you? I will handle Atenre."

"You can do that?" I asked, not convinced.

He glanced back at me, his gaze an intense warning. "Just go, Ketsue."

I nodded quickly, slipping past him and resisting the little shudder that went through me at the sight of Atenre. In that briefest of glances toward the demon lord, the pain of my leg had soared with a sudden fearsome vehemence that made me wince; it crossed my mind that, although the pain was indeed real, that the spontaneous onslaught of it could have and probably had been psychological and not physical.

Darting down the hallway in the opposite direction of Atenre, I ignored the complaint of my leg to the best of my ability, though thanks to the deepest slash on it—the one that had forced me to abandon my façade and to make a noise of pain that alerted Hiei and Atenre to the Ofuda's effect—I was still forced into a limp. Running, I recognized in my mind, was likely not the smartest thing for my leg right now, but I didn't have much of a choice.

The halls I turned down were surprisingly empty. It was as though Atenre thought that, having caught Hiei and I, there would not be any more infiltration attempts. It seemed it was not merely a trick to make me feel falsely secure, either—I could sense little demonic energy as I headed for where Hiei was being kept.

The dungeon where Hiei had been held had been only down the hall from my own, at the very end of the hallway; while mine was a cell, his had been the main dungeon and thus it was connected to the passageway rowed with other cells identical to mine. I would have needed only to go down that hall to get to him, had Atenre not been there; I had decided quite obviously not to try to get past the demon lord, though, and rather to go around.

As it had been in the force field Nirvana had put up to surround Yusuke and I a few months back, telepathic communication was blocked outside of close range; I had figured that out when I had tried to contact Hiei the night I was put into my own cell, and in the same manner as within the force field, my mind was painfully repelled. I had opted not to try it again. Right then, I sorely wished that such was not the case—I was not familiar with the layout of the castle, and I'd rather not rely on my spiritual awareness to get me where I had to go. It was my only option then, though.

Without even noticing immediately, I became hopeful on my way that I would run into Keicchirin again. Because he was another person from my past life, one who had been close to Chichiro, I had already thought up several questions I wished to ask him. I did not see any trace or hint of him, however, despite the fact that I had continued looking the entire way, even when I realized what I had unconsciously been doing.

I arrived at the door to the dungeon uninterrupted. Blasted open as it had been the last time I'd left it, the darkness of the floor below suddenly seemed far more ominous than my first trip there; after all, it was nighttime from what I had seen out my cell window (Small as it was), and there was no artificial light down in the dungeon to brighten my way.

Closing my eyes a moment and forcing down any of my human-like fear of the dark, I considered once again looking to Aletta for aid; I decided against.

Opening my eyes, I bit my upper lip and took the first step.

The stairs seemed longer than they had the first time, but it also took less time to get down them—my pace was more hurried, now, despite my injured leg.

"Hiei?" I hissed to the darkness.

"What was Kurama thinking?" replied his irritated voice from the shadows. "Taking on Atenre by himself. Hn. Even _I'm_ not that arrogant."

Hurrying toward the sound of his voice, I hastened to lift my hands toward his cuffs (Or rather his arms, as I had to sense where his arms were in the darkness to have any hope of getting to the cuffs), but his voice halted me. "Don't try, Ketsue. It's not just because I'm in them that these shackles are disrupting my energy—if you touch them from the outside, they have the same effect."

"Okay," I answered after a moment, "what do you expect me to do, then?"

"I was considering that when you came thundering down those steps and interrupted my thoughts," he growled back.

Again with the coldness. He hadn't seemed _this_ annoyed at me in some time. "Alright, enough," I told him, keeping my voice quieted even though Hiei didn't seem much concerned toward the volume of his own. "What did I do? You've been pissy with me ever since I got here."

"You should have known better than to come, that's why," he snarled, no hint of kindness in his voice. "I'd have expected you to have more common sense."

"Then you expected too much," I muttered back flatly, trying to keep the hurt from my voice and succeeding only mildly better than I had during our first encounter in this dungeon.

"I suppose so," he agreed coldly.

Silently, I leaned against the stone wall and slid down it, staring ahead into the unforgiving black shadows and considering how I was supposed to free Hiei, whether he wanted to be freed or not (Though I suspected it was not the rescue that bothered him, but the rescu_er_.). Energy would not do a thing, as apparently the shackles disrupted any demonic power. Brute strength probably wouldn't do much, either, as I figured if it would have made a difference, Hiei would have already done it.

Didn't hurt to ask. "Have you tried breaking them?"

"Breaking them how?" he grumbled back, his tone already suggesting he considered my question as stupid as I figured it was.

"Just with your bare hands." Though, his hands were bound. "Er, strength."

He heaved a large sigh. "Ketsue, don't you think that if I broke these binds that they'd happily put another set on?"

"…Is _that_ the only reason you haven't done anything yet?" I cried back, astounded by how casually Hiei, of all people, had said something so stupid.

"Of course not. But consider it, Ketsue—why would I try to break free?"

"I dunno," I replied sarcastically, "'cause you want to _be_ free?"

"And I'm sure with _that_ smug attitude, you've also considered that I was imprisoned here by _choice_."

As I had when we'd had a spat the first time in relatively the same setting, I opened my mouth to argue, then quickly snapped it shut. He had a point there. As Nirvana had shown, through threatening him with my safety, she had been able to get Hiei to agree to come along without a fight. _He'd have no reason to break out,_ I thought to myself. "Still," I said aloud finally, "you have no reason to stay here, now, do you?"

"No. But who said I'd planned to?"

I felt his hand on my right shoulder, then, yanking me to my feet. I stared at him, or rather his silhouette as I could see little right then, mouth slightly agape. "You…already got free?"

"Obviously." That amused arrogance had entered his tone again; this seemed more like the Hiei I knew. "I was just waiting for you to get here."

"And…you didn't tell me you were free already _why_?"

"I was waiting for you to figure it out."

Shaking my head for a few seconds, I finally growled with annoyance that was overshadowed by relief, "Alright, who are you and where's the Hiei I know?" Of course I didn't _actually_ think this was anyone other than Hiei, despite my experience with Nirvana. "He doesn't use 'waiting' twice in a row—applied to himself, at least. He's not really the patient type, you know."

"This situation was an exception; well worth it, in my opinion."

"…Fine. Whatever. Can we go now?"

I couldn't see it, but I could sense him grin his irritatingly and yet so loveably smug grin. "I suppose we could."

We had only just begun to walk up the staircase when a thought came to mind. "Hiei, wait."

"Hn?"

"If you only came here out of choice 'cause of the consent charm Nirvana had on me—" I hadn't even thought before I spoke about the fact that Hiei didn't know that she'd told me his reasoning to come here; I figured it didn't matter he knew, though. "—then why didn't you break free as soon as you saw me?"

"Common sense," he replied flatly. "You've obviously been out of practice with it if you couldn't think of any reason for me to stay otherwise. Consider the fact that Atenre is far stronger than either of us, and Nirvana is barely weaker than us; they would have been quite formidable to battle with just the two of us, not even mentioning the horde of demons they have at their command." This seemed as good a reason as any, but he went on: "Secondly, consent charms are not always obvious, as I assume yours was if you believe them to be blatantly detectable; I had no way of knowing whether Nirvana still had power over you, and she was in close enough proximity to dispose of you quite easily using it." Now I was feeling a bit foolish for asking at all. "And lastly—or at least last of those I feel pressing enough to tell you—even if your consent charm was not still active, this was a perfect opportunity for continuing your training."

I only had to try to gage his expression for a few seconds to realize he meant that seriously. For some reason, it scared me a bit that Hiei could think so calmly of torture—even if it didn't ever get all that terrible—and life-and-death experiences as _training_.

"…Oh."

But Hiei had already turned and was heading up the staircase once again, and I wondered as I followed if Hiei's legs hurt as badly as mine.

I realized not long after beginning to follow the fire demon through the halls that we were not heading for Kurama, but toward the outside of the castle. "Hey!" I cried, indignant even before the question was asked. I didn't bother specifying it, either, as I knew he would understand me as soon as I spoke: "What the hell are you doing?" I stopped walking.

He turned to glare at me, appearing exasperated. "Don't worry about Kurama, Ketsue. He can handle himself, and he only intends to distract Atenre long enough for us to get away. Then he will follow."

Stubbornly, I pressed, "How can you be so sure?"

"Because I've known Kurama far longer than you or Chichiro," he growled back, seeming offended. His tone warned me that I was trying his patience.

Still uncertain, I lingered a moment longer where I was, my eyes imploring him to find something else to convince me to leave with him. I had wanted very little in the past more than I wanted to leave that stronghold then, but my loyalty to Kurama—especially after betraying him to Atenre—held strong and refused to allow me to leave.

Hiei answered the pleading of my gaze. "The sooner we leave, the sooner Kurama will stop distracting Atenre. The sooner we leave, the sooner he's out of danger and the sooner you can stop worrying."

I glanced away from his gaze for a moment, uncomfortable meeting it until I'd made up my mind. He was right, of course—I should follow him so I would not hinder Kurama's escape any longer. But after what I'd done, I felt like I needed to help Kurama…

"You may apologize to him _later_," Hiei's voice broke into my thoughts, still impatiently. It didn't even occur to me that it was surprising he knew my reason for hanging back as I suddenly noticed from the closeness of his tone that he was right in front of me; a second or two later I realized that his hand had snagged my wrist. "Come on."

Allowing myself to be lead, I tried to hide how ashamed I felt running away without helping Kurama at all, even if I knew he'd be better off without our 'aid'.

* * *

"Go."

"…What?" I stared first at the rift-tear, then at the Jaganshi pointing at it. "You're making it sound like you're not coming."

"Don't be an idiot," Hiei grumbled. "Just go, will you?"

"_Are_ you coming?" I pushed.

"Yes. But you're going first."

It had taken him a moment longer to respond than usual—he was lying. "No you're not," I growled at him angrily when I realized it. "You're going back for Kurama, aren't you? You lied! He's not okay!"

"He's _fine_ and you're being thick," Hiei told me, his voice a bit raised.

"Maybe I am," I replied, glaring fiercely at him, "but all the same, I'd feel a lot better if _you_ went first."

"Together, then," he said instantly, not a suggestion but a decision.

Shrugging, I conceded, "Fine," and went to stand by him.

Hiei wrapped his arm around my midsection, leaping up to the rift-tear that was lingering about forty feet above the ground. I felt the air change into something closer to the human world, though colder, and then noticed almost too late that Hiei was letting go of me.

"Oh, no you don't," I snarled, grabbing his wrist and yanking him through the rift-tear with me. The rift-tear was only about twenty feet from the ground in this world, so the collision with the ground was not terrible even though I had pulled Hiei down on top of me. Quickly, I pushed up and rolled on top of Hiei, pinning him to the dirt and barking, "You were going to go back even _then_! Jeez, I can't believe you!"

"Let me go, Ketsue." His cold, crimson gaze narrowed at me.

"Why, so you can head back there to rescue Kurama on your own? Let me come!"

"By all means, you can come," he conceded quickly; quickly enough that I knew he was being sarcastic. "That way, you can teach me your astoundingly effective techniques for retrieving prisoners, like you did with me."

Stung, I wasn't even aware of raising my hand before it had come down on Hiei's face. "Shut up!" I shouted, and before I could stop myself, words of pent up anger and frustration came spilling out of my lips. "You're not one to talk, mister big-shot! You got captured so I'd be safe, like I wouldn't come after you! You should have done us all a favor and just let them kill me, 'cause then you couldn't have been captured and Kurama would be fine and nobody would have been hurt!"

"Except you," he put in coldly, still glaring up at me from where I had him pinned. There was a red mark on his face, now, from where I had slapped him.

"_Be quiet!_" I spat, feeling angry tears sting my eyes. "Be _quiet_, will you?! Let me finish!" And amazingly, he obeyed. I blundered on in his silence: "You were mean to me the entire time I was there just because you were angry I didn't think about my own safety and came after you, but you did the same thing to me in going there in the first place. And you expect me not to be mad?! Hah! And you always act like _I'm_ the idiot—you're being daft as I ever was! I was just worried about you and you greeted me with a nasty attitude just because you realized _you_ messed up."

He looked briefly stunned, but I didn't stop; he seemed to have taken what I said before seriously and intended to let me finish.

"Yeah, I know, hard to believe the great Hiei Jaganshi is able to mess up, isn't it? I was surprised, too, that you were acting like such a sentimental human, being captured on my behalf. And now you're probably going to go and act like one _again_ and get captured _again_, but at least this time it'll be for Kurama and not me."

Hiei seemed fully aware that the latter half of the last sentence had been thickened with sarcasm, but still he said nothing.

"No, I'm sorry, but I don't think you're going back there at all—not without me. Because after all that, you owe me, and the least you can do is let me come with you and get captured alongside you if that's how it goes down. And if not, then bloody fucking _wonderful_—we'll _both_ be fine." Huffing, not used to raising my voice that much, I finished in a hoarse voice, "Now, are you going to let me come or are you going to actually listen to what you said yourself and let Kurama get out of it himself?"

Surprisingly to me, he didn't answer with any shouts of retaliation after all that; he just switched his blood red eyes away from mine and muttered, "Let me up, will you?"

Stiffly and with a voice that was trembling the slightest, I mumbled, "Fine," and stood off of him.

As I crossed my arms and mirrored his earlier action by looking away from him, I was aware that he had looked up toward the rift-tear. I almost felt like shouting at him that I couldn't believe he was still thinking of leaving without me, but it turned out such was not the reasoning for his glance. No, it appeared that Kurama had just leapt through the fissure in the sky and was now running toward us.

"No time to explain," he told us instantly, before either Hiei or I could even open our mouths. "I'm being pursued—we must leave now."

Casually, as if he had not just been bombarded with my angry yelling, Hiei called after Kurama, "You couldn't have at least _shaken_ them?"

"Sorry," Kurama threw over his shoulder innocently. "There were a lot of them, you know. They seemed to get a bit angry after I got away from Atenre…"

"Can't imagine why," Hiei grumbled sarcastically and set off after the fox demon, sparing me a single glance as he passed me as if to say without words for me to follow.

I obeyed in silence, a bit stunned by my own boldness to speak up to Hiei (A thing I very rarely ever did, and something I had not done to that extent since I thought he had tried to kill me at the Dark Tournament's end.), and went after them as they passed through several fissures between worlds.

Briefly in the back of my mind, I wondered if traveling to several worlds in a row counted as _world-hopping,_ the thing Hiei had mentioned to me a while back. I had the sudden urge to keep doing it.

No such luck, however, as it appeared that Kurama was satisfied we had gone far enough. I looked toward him as he began to speak. "Well, I am confident we are safe for now," he told us. "I doubt Atenre's personal guard would want to get very far from their master—" He cut off suddenly with a small grunt as I ran forward and hugged him tightly, squeezing my eyes shut as again I felt the prick of tears.

"I'm so sorry!" I cried, burying my face in his chest. "I didn't mean to do it, I was just so scared. And I know it's no excuse for what I did, and I wish I could take it back—"

"It's fine, Ketsue." He pulled me away from him so he could look at me, though I stared determinedly at the ground in hopes he would not notice that I was crying. Such hopes were quickly crushed as he crouched in front of me, looking up into my face with a kind and almost fatherly expression. "You didn't do anything wrong."

I bit my lip as he used the side of his thumb to wipe away the tears on the left side of my face. Looking away from him, I found my voice to be hoarse again for a much different reason as I whispered, "How can you be so nice to me? What if Atenre had taken it worse, or not known it wasn't you—?"

Kurama made a silencing noise, which I quickly conceded to. "But he didn't. You and I are lucky in that respect. But you've learned something, haven't you?"

I finally met his eyes, finding he was still smiling at me. I felt like a three-year-old being comforted after crying over knocking over and breaking something when I nodded, lifting my own hand and wiping away the rest of my tears.

"I admit I don't even know what you said I did," he told me good-naturedly as he put his hands on my shoulders, "but you must realize, I'm not angry with you. I never was."

I was struck with the sudden urge to tell him what I had betrayed him for, to prove it had not been anything terrible and to further his idea that he should not be angry with me, but I forced myself to maintain my silence on the matter. I didn't deserve any thing other than anger from him, and yet he was treating me with such kindness already; I didn't want to feel like I deserved that kindness, because I knew I didn't. "I know," I mumbled in a teary voice finally, after convincing myself not to tell him, barely managing to add, "Thank you," in a clear tone.

He stood finally, removing only one of his hands and keeping the other rested on my shoulder as he looked to Hiei. "Well, shall we move along? I'd say this has been quite the stressful couple of days for all of us, huh?"

I gave a little laugh and nodded in agreement, though Hiei only shrugged and muttered something about not knowing what the hell had just happened, the only clear thing being, "Crazy foxes."

It was the first and last time I ever heard him address me as a fox in this lifetime.


	38. Plight of the Reincarnate

**Disclaimer:** Neither Hiei or YuYu Hakusho are mine.

**Claimer:** Chichiro and Ketsue are mine, Kaze is BritKit, Aria is FoxWitch. While not all the characters are mine, all writing, storylines and concepts in this fanfiction (Save any YYH references) are. This includes Nirvana, Spike, all shadowcats, the shadowcat species, Escque, Mahdaegrahs/entities, scorpios etcetera.

* * *

The walk to school the day after getting back was insultingly cold. I had been in a life and death situation—_again_—the previous day and yet nature still decided it would not give me a break. The world hated me, I decided nonchalantly as I stuffed my hands into the pockets of my hoodie, pinning my arms close to my sides to keep warm.

"Here," I heard a familiar voice say from behind me, "coffee."

I turned to rest my eyes on Kaze, who was offering me her usual morning cup of coffee, finding her to be a bit better bundled than myself. I smiled gratefully and took it even as I warned her, "I'll probably drink a lot of it."

"Just leave me some," she replied with a little shrug. "You're the one who was sick; I think you need coffee more than me."

I blinked my confusion, eyebrows raised a moment before I realized Hiei must have planned ahead and used his jagan on my parents so that nobody at school would wonder where I was. _Finally over not using it, is he?_ I wondered to myself, very glad at the fact; it would make my life a helluva lot easier. "Hey," I said now that I had a chance to ask, "what day of the week is it?"

"Tuesday." Kaze quirked an eyebrow at me. "Why?"

"I got my days mixed up while I was sick," I lied quickly, surprised at how smoothly I was able to act like I knew what she was talking about in terms of why I had been absent from school the previous day. It felt a bit like I was getting a bit _too_ comfortable lying.

"Ah." As we turned off the sidewalk and began heading through the bus loop for the side door into the hallway with our lockers, she observed without any unkindness in her voice, "You have a terrible sense of what to wear on what day, do you know that?" She went on before I could ask what she was talking about, explaining, "You wear all black on the hottest days of summer and then thin sweatshirts over t-shirts on the coldest days of fall."

I laughed lightly. "Yeah, I know."

Being with Kaze in school—just in the hallways, as we did not have any classes together—was honestly one of the best parts of the initial half of that first year of high school, during school-time at least. It made me feel like the judging looks and subtle glances of distaste that I earned were insignificant.

Speaking of which, I probably could have at least dulled the amount of dislike toward me by not dressing in mostly black, but I had decided the previous year that if I was going to be treated like an outcast, I should at least dress like one. Thus, I became one of the few "Goth" kids at my school, wearing ridiculously baggy pants with chains that didn't have a function hanging off the back of them, and sporting heavy spike collars that looked more like a weapon than a necklace. It was surprising to me how few people cared that my blonde hair was out of place with the look, and how many more just cared about the look itself.

A couple days before Hiei and I had left for our mission concerning Nirvana, Hiei had shown outside my window after I'd gotten dressed, eyeing my outfit choice. "Are you going to dress like that all the time, now?" he had asked, though I couldn't tell if his voice was criticizing me or indifferent; he was a hard one to read into.

"Yeah, why?"

"Humans who are depressed usually wear that sort of thing," Hiei had grumbled unenthusiastically. "Are you trying to tell everyone you're depressed?"

"I'm not," I had replied, snickering. "Why, are you concerned?"

"No," he'd muttered back instantly.

"Yeah, well, it's not like my new clothing preference means I'll go all, 'The world hates me therefore I hate myself therefore I'm going to kill myself'."

His eyebrows had risen in mild mock surprise to that. "I wasn't aware there was an entire category of people like that. With such a long name, as well."

I blinked at him. "What, 'The world hates me therefore—'"

"Yes," he'd growled before I could finish, "that."

Now, as I recalled it, I tried to resist the laughter threatening to spill my lips. I figured the last thing I needed was to seem like a schizophrenic to the entire school as well. Heaving a large sigh, I stopped in front of my locker and began to twist my combination into the dial on the lock.

That afternoon when I arrived back from school, I was taken aback by the sound of the washing machine whirring in the basement; laundry day was usually on the weekends.

"Mom?" I called, letting my textbook-filled backpack drop to the ground with quite the impressively loud _wham_!

"What?" I heard her yell from the floor below me.

Surprised, I began to head for the kitchen as I raised my voice again and asked, "What are you doing home from work already?"

My mother headed up the basement stairs into the kitchen before she answered me, setting a basket full of unfolded clothes on the floor. "I wasn't feeling well, so Lisa told me to head home," she responded, which made me notice she was already in her pajamas. Lisa was the woman that she worked with, as she was a teacher's aid. "I think I caught what you had."

I had to struggle to keep a straight face. "Maybe."

"I figured since I was going to be home all day I should try and get something done," she went on, oblivious to my amusement. "Just 'cause I'm sick doesn't mean I can't do a couple loads of laundry, right?" She then made a sound that suggested she'd overexerted herself and asked, "How did it start?"

Bewildered, I asked, "How did what start?"

"Your sickness."

"Uhm…" There was no telling if Hiei had been specific with the symptoms of my imaginary sickness or not, so I decided not to risk it and merely told her, "I dunno. I can't remember."

"Oh, well. Here." She presented me with the laundry basket that had been on the floor, shoving it into my arms. "Take this upstairs, will you? And do me a favor and put away your clothes, please."

"Yes, Mom." Not feeling as reluctant to obey as I usually would have merely because she was sick, I headed up the stairs, stopping at the top of the landing to fish through the pile of clothes and find mine. A specific shirt caught my eye, and I furrowed my brow as I picked it up and looked at it closer. A large, ugly brownish-red stain soaked the front of it—blood. "Mom—!" I called, exaggerating the length and volume of it so I could be sure she'd heard me. "This stain didn't come out of my shirt!"

I glared at it as she called back, "Get a new one, then! If it didn't come out the first time, then it won't come out the second!"

Growling and chucking it back in the basket anyway, I mumbled to myself, "Dammit, I really liked that shirt."

_You're lucky she got sick, you know_, Hiei's voice told me in my mind. _It serves dual purposes: It helps ensure she believes you were sick, and the laundry was done so you have enough clothes to finish out the week. You're running low because your clothing keeps getting destroyed in battles, aren't you?_

_How did you know that?_ I asked him telepathically as I stuffed a few shirts into a drawer.

_You were complaining about it to yourself this morning,_ he replied casually. _You talk to yourself a lot when you're getting ready for school._

_Or maybe,_ I suggested flatly, _I'm talking to you, I just make it seem like I'm talking to myself so if somebody else comes in my room, they don't think I have an imaginary friend._

_Right, because talking to _yourself_ is so much better._

_Hey, that one's justified_, I grumbled back. _People do that all the time._

_Hn._

I flopped down onto my bed after finishing my quick chore, deciding I'd move the basket in the hall out of the way of the stairs later. Feeling hints of boredom prodding at my mind already, I wondered to Hiei, _What do you do all day while I'm at school? You must have something to do, or else you'd get really bored._

_Same thing I do when you're back from school,_ he told me. _Fight the Escque._

I grinned weakly. _Do you ever do anything else?_

_Not often._

And suddenly, in my mind's eye I foresaw myself ten years in the future, still doing this sort of thing and still finding myself bedridden every couple of weeks thanks to a new injury I'd have to find an excuse for. _Do you ever take a break?_

_There are no breaks in a war, Ketsue,_ Hiei responded, his tone making it sound as though he was reminding me of something.

…_Right._

There was only a short silence before Hiei commented, _We have to leave for Makai tonight. Yusuke and Kurama—_

_Nope_, I interrupted before he could finish his reasoning. _I have a math test and a social studies quiz tomorrow._

He was silent for a moment, as if too astounded by how casually I was regarding the importance of aiding in the 'war' in comparison to school work. _Ketsue_, he began finally, _there's no chance you're trying to be funny, is there?_

_Nope._

…_Kurama and Yusuke need reinforcements to help them push back Atenre's forces. All of us escaping with our lives pissed him off a bit._

_Yeah, well, you go then and bring Kuwabara along. I've got tests tomorrow. _I would not have minded how irrational I knew I was being if I hadn't realized how much like Kagome I sounded right then.

Hiei also cared I was being irrational, though for a much different reason. _Kuwabara is not consistently around to offer aid in this war, Ketsue. It's your job to—_

_Ohh, it's a job now?_ I interrupted. _I don't think so. Especially when you try and act like Kuwabara's reasoning isn't the same exact as mine._

_Do you really expect to spend the rest of your life with these humans?_

His question caught me off guard. _Shouldn't I?_ I responded after a few seconds' pause.

_Sure, if you think I'm going to leave you behind when I go back to Makai._

As cliché as phrase as it seems, I could have sworn I felt my heart skip a beat when I heard him say that. Not quite believing I understood him correctly, I asked, _You're going to take me with you when the war ends?_

_Why wouldn't I?_

It was such a simple query, spoken as though there was no alternative to taking me with him and as if I should have assumed he would from the start. _Well…That day I asked you about the end of the war, you said—_

_I only said the war would not end soon,_ he finished for me before I could try and explain how the discussion had seemed to me. _I did not say I would force you to remain in Ningenkai after its closure._

…_Oh._ Still quite astounded by this news, I slipped and spoke aloud. "I still have to take those tests."

"No, you don't," Hiei growled at me from the window, sounding quite annoyed now. I supposed it must have been safe to speak out loud if Hiei had done so as well, so my blunder did not seem quite so bad.

"It's not like you can force me or anything" I told him indignantly. "You're strong, but I doubt you're that desperate." It had not even crossed my mind to elaborate on that, but I went on anyway as though I had been momentarily possessed merely to say the next phrase: "Or that stupid."

"I believe you'll see that I can force you quite simply," he responded, a hint of coldness entering his tone.

"Oh yeah? Then I'll prove to you that you don't have a say." I thrust my arm out then, expelling energy from my fingertips and allowing my eyes to lose focus as I did so—though this was not the sort of energy used for a physical assault.

Hiei, staring at me a moment and clearly befuddled by it, asked flatly, "What was that? I was sure you'd the intent to attack me."

"Nada. Something much better," I told him in a self-pleased manner, with a smirk. "…Just takes a little longer."

That night, he discovered what I meant when thunder shook my house and chased my cats to the basement and my dog to my comfort, when the winds howled about my hometown with the vehemence to have the weatherman put up a tornado watch, and when the rain came in a constant downpour outside, streaking my windows and soaking everything in its range with its wrath. Most importantly of all this, it also soaked Hiei, and when I felt I had sufficiently made my point, I allowed the storm to briefly slow long enough for me to slide open my window and say, "You can come inside if you like. I think you've got my drift _now._"

"Not yet," he grumbled back coldly, though I could tell he'd rather be inside and dry. "As you told me so long ago, 'my skull's thicker than you know'."

Now smiling at him sympathetically, I said, "I promise I'll make it stop if you don't tell me to come with you on exam day again."

He glared off at nothing apparent for several seconds before he turned to me, fixing me with an intense look and said, "I need you. Come with me."

If I were able, I think I would have melted right there. Then, weakly, I said, "You bastard. That's what you meant when you said you could get me to come easily, right?"

The rapt, heart-stopping gaze on his face was no longer there, replaced instead by an arrogant smirk. "It worked, didn't it?"

"…Fucker. Let me change first."

After I'd done so and once Hiei had fixed a few false excuses into my parents' minds with his jagan, we set off for demon world as he had told me we would. Before we'd left, he'd told me, "Yusuke will be the one explaining our situation to you. I know you hate doing this, but you will stick with him and I will fight alongside Kurama."

Indignant, I'd asked, "What the hell for? If we're all fighting the same battle it doesn't matter."

"It does," he had insisted, surprisingly patiently. "You and Yusuke will be the force to contain the lesser demons and the Escque and to make sure that the rift is not breached." _A rift,_ I thought to myself. _Oh goody. I've missed those._ "Kurama and I," Hiei went on, oblivious to my sarcastic mental comments to myself, "will be taking care of the A-Class, entities and any of the higher-level demons there to back up the weaker ones."

"And?" I'd pressed.

"'And'?" he had echoed. "What do you expect me to say?"

"And there must be something else or you wouldn't have made the situation out to be so dire."

"It's true that Kurama and I may have to leave during the battle and go after Nirvana if she shows—"

"See?" I cut him off. "Always leaving out the important parts…Guess Yusuke doesn't have to explain it to me anymore, anyway."

But then he'd told me to hurry up and ushered me off, thus our conversation had been ended before I could allow him to finish explaining.

For once in a very long while, we did not go through a single rift-tear on our journey. Also uncharacteristically of our trips, I ran on my own rather than allowing Hiei to carry me. Both of our legs were sore (Or rather, I assumed his were because mine still were; he had less cuts on his legs than I, but he also had more over-all.) from Atenre's sadistic 'questioning' of us, thus I didn't want to burden him with having to carry me.

I was never sure exactly what, if anything, Atenre had gotten from my mind. At the very least, he must have known my weaknesses—my friends in the human world and my human family. I worried for them only briefly, as Hiei assured me quickly that Atenre and Nirvana would know better and go after him instead if they wanted at me. As I told him, "_Yeah, 'cause that makes me feel _oh_ so much better._" He, on the other hand, had seen nothing wrong with the comment.

The chill in the air as it darkened around us told me that winter was approaching faster with every passing day; I figured that soon, the morning frost would begin thickening, and then snow would follow. I was always very excited about winter until it actually came; during the season, I found I was always very excited for summer. That is, until it came. Such was my nature—as they say, the grass is always greener.

Briefly, as I considered this, I wondered if someday I would become sick of this fighting lifestyle and find that I wanted my human life back; if I ever got that human life back, would I find that I missed my demon life?

My mind drifted back to the present as I followed Hiei's lead and slowed down, landing neatly on the ground at the edge of a familiar field. Several hundred yards away, I spotted an equally familiar-looking, beaten-down shack that had contained a portal to Japan the last time I had seen it. Glancing to Hiei, I was about to ask him if we were to use that same portal when he began to walk forward, ignoring my step toward him.

"Yusuke," he said, forcing me to realize that the black-haired ex-detective was heading for us. "Are you ready to take her?"

"Take me?" I repeated, indignant. "What, is he baby-sitting me?"

Mimicking my sarcasm, Yusuke answered, "I dunno, you tell me, Chichiro. You old enough to stay home alone?"

I sneered irritably back at him before looking to Hiei. "Is that it? You're already leaving me?"

"Dude, don't make it so dramatic," the detective once again spoke up. "Are you guys together constantly or somethin'? Come _on_."

"Actually—" I began heatedly, though Hiei sighed exasperatedly and cut me off.

"Just look after her, Yusuke. If she dies, know you'll follow very slowly. And I don't mean that to be a good thing." And then he turned casually away from me and flickered off in a black blur.

Staring at where he'd disappeared, I shook my head and grumbled, "Way to say bye, Hiei."

"So," Yusuke addressed me, and I turned to face him, "you ready?"

"I guess so," I mumbled back. "I thought he was coming to the battle site with us?"

"Obviously not," the Ma-zoku replied flatly.

I sighed heavily. "I must be doing something wrong," I muttered, and although it seemed to be to myself, I said it mainly for Yusuke's benefit. Seeming to pick up on that, he fixed me with a questioning look and I went on, "Everybody's been really ticked off with me lately and I don't know why." Glancing at the detective I said, "You're acting like you did when we first met and you didn't trust me. _Did_ I do something wrong?"

With a surprising amount of sarcasm, Yusuke replied, "Oh, no, nothing at all."

Raising my eyebrows, I asked, "What?"

With an incredulous nature, Yusuke answered, "Dude, Kurama?"

Feeling a pit in my stomach, I murmured, "He told you about that?"

"No, Koenma did," he responded with a coldness that was uncharacteristic of him. "I don't think it matters who I heard it from or if I even know, though. Just matters you did it."

I had thought to try and say something back to that, but I settled on keeping my mouth shut and looked away from him.

"And I'm supposed to believe _you're_ the reincarnation of Chichiro? Pfft. Yeah right. She'd never do something like that."

I stared miserably at the ground, trying my hardest to make sure he didn't see my lip trembling; the last thing I needed to do then was to cry and act like I was the age my human body was.

He finally just made a little, 'hmmph,' noise and then mumbled, "Come on," as he turned away.

Our trip was made in silence, and I found that I wished I could change what I'd done even more for the sake of my relationship to Yusuke rather than for the sake of my relationship to Kurama. It was probably merely that Kurama had forgiven me easily, but it also didn't feel right to be in the presence of someone like Yusuke who believed in second chances, who I was so used to joking with, and feel like he hated every bit of me.

It was also the first time in a while that I felt envious of Chichiro—my past life, not my yami. I wished, suddenly, that I could be her again—_fully_ her, with no part of me being human. Perhaps she could have gotten out of that situation without betraying anyone, being selfless all the way and not being intimidated by Atenre. She _had_ killed him once, after all, hadn't she? Now, it felt like perhaps I was a mere shell of the Chichiro Hiei had fallen in love with, a tiny fraction of what she had been—an imposter claiming to be someone she wasn't. Now, I was as good as human. Even my yami likely could have done better in that situation, I considered with bitter humor; at least she would have been honest rather than lying and blaming someone else.

_Though_, I considered with a small, humorless smirk to myself, _that's only because she'd do anything to get Hiei killed._

"Demon girl," Yusuke grumbled, stopping my thoughts and my footsteps. Looking up, I found him watching me with the same, cold glare as before. He jerked his head upward. "Jumping time."

He disappeared through the rift-tear he'd indicated directly after he spoke it, and I sighed lightly and bunched my legs to follow.

As I sailed through the fissure between worlds, I considered—Hadn't anyone else in my team realized Yusuke would react like this? I pondered a moment what Hiei would have done with that knowledge, and immediately the answer to this unusual pairing up came to me: Knowing how the detective would react, Hiei would have purposefully sent me to wok with him. He was constantly finding unorthodox seeming ways of teaching me things, lessons I needed to know to be able to survive this demonic lifestyle I had taken on. I was sure he'd realized by now that I was a sensitive person…What better way to break that than to force me to be confronted with someone who would pick me apart for doing wrong rather than be kind and forgiving no matter what I did?

_I think I'm gonna have to shout at him again when I see him next_, I thought to myself, though for whatever reason, I felt better after considering it.

My feet kicked up dirt as I landed on the opposite side of the rift-tear, alerting me to the fact that there was little vegetation wherever we were. What was there was sickly, sharp or gangly-looking, the types of plants that one would see in a desert in the human world. The lack of color did make it easier for my eyes to fall on Yusuke, however.

"Would you hurry up?" he growled at me. "The least you could do is keep up with your teammate, even if ultimately it'll suck for him to have you as one."

Bristling, I registered in the back of my mind that I had been braver as of late dealing with people as I snarled at Yusuke, "Look, Atenre asked me who had told him that he could read minds, and he knew I didn't have the knowledge myself. Only three other people were there when he was killed before: Hiei, Kurama and Tamiko. I'm sorry that Kurama was the first person I thought of, but I wanted to protect Hiei and I'm pretty sure you know that Kurama can take damn good care of himself. Tamiko wasn't even _on_ this mission to my knowledge—it wouldn't have made any sense. And if I'd kept my mouth shut he would have dragged it from my mind anyway, so—"

"Alright, fine," Yusuke spat back, glaring away from me. "I probably could forgive you for it if I actually believed you had considered any of that before you said Kurama, but I don't." I felt myself stiffen at that, for I knew it was true, but I had hoped it would have deterred his hatred of me at least a bit. "Let's go."

But, somehow, his tone seemed less unfriendly. Perhaps it had calmed him…If only a little.

Sighing heavily again, I trudged after the angry detective toward the next rift-tear, realizing that I might as well not even pay attention to where we were. Not like I'd stay in any world long unless it was our true destination.

That was the last time I'd make that mistake to consciously ignore my surroundings. In my time as a warrior under Hiei's teachings, I learned many things, but most of the time I learned from my own mistakes—as I did right then.

As I had decided previously, I did not pay attention to my surroundings, only looked skyward to discover the whereabouts of the next rift-tear. When my eyes fell on it, however, I found myself already heading for it, but not by choice; the force of Yusuke's body ramming me toward did a much better job of moving me there than my own legs did.

As we both tumbled to the ground on the other side of the newest rift-tear, I scrambled from beneath him and glanced backward with wide eyes at him where he currently lay, facedown in the earth. I halted my hand as soon as it reached for him to turn him over, as I realized that that the fabric of his shirt now had a large, shiny red spot on it; his shirt wasn't red.

"You're bleeding!" I cried, moving for him quickly.

"Yeah, I noticed," he grumbled back, left hand cupping the wound on his right shoulder, or rather right beside his right shoulder on his back as.

"What happened?"

"You're terrible at paying attention, that's what happened," he replied, glancing up at the rift-tear while he was sitting up as though to be sure we weren't followed by his mysterious assailant. I could have sworn I heard him continue in a mutter, "Though I'm one to talk…"

"That's not an answer," I growled at him, and despite him swatting his hand in my direction as I advanced, I went behind him and pulled down the back of his shirt as gently as I could to examine his wound.

Before I could decide the severity—though not to say I was much good at figuring anything about wounds, which I knew next to nothing about—of it, I became aware that Yusuke had no only been speaking about our previous situation when he mentioned my inadequacy at paying attention. He meant now as well—we were surrounded.

Shrugging me off without much aversion to it this time, he stood from where he'd been sitting and recovering on the ground, now raising his right arm to face the demons even though it obviously hurt him to do so. His hand, formed into an imitation of a gun, glowed blue before the point of the glow became refined to the tip of his index finger.

Knowing what would come next, I didn't bother to watch, instead summoning my own energy weapon. My own shoulder—again rather next to it than the actual shoulder—was not in the best of shape either, and I figured that even if mine had had some time to heal, I was not much better off than he save for the fact that his was still bleeding. Nirvana had done a number on my left arm and I was frankly amazed I could still move it; I had already assumed it was the ability demons have to heal quickly, or at least move past wounds that were not critical.

My weapon navigated its way through the outstretched, clawed and groping hands of the Escque, soon finding a torso to be shoved through, then an arm to be hacked off. My blade was not well practiced as of late, but it seemed that I at least was not rusty enough to be unable to kill off a few walking corpses, at least.

"Yusuke?" I called over my shoulder, though I wasn't sure if I wanted him to respond so I could ask him again what I'd already mentioned or to see if he was still conscious.

I was able to do both as he replied, "What do you want, demon girl?"

"What happened back there, through the rift-tear?"

"I dunno, you tell me how you miss a demon standing right behind you and waiting to impale you," he responded sourly.

It was easy enough to work out in my mind that he'd defended me from it; he clearly assumed I'd come to such a conclusion as he went on, "You heard Hiei—he'd kill me if anything happened to you."

His voice was strained, though controlled. His wound was not life-threatening. "But you hate me," I persisted.

"Hiei would hate me more if I let you get hurt," he replied, continuing to fight the demons with one hand as the other keeping pressure on his wound to slow the bleeding. "Besides, I don't hate you. I dunno if you know this or not, but I suck at holding grudges."

A grin crept its way across my face, though it felt out of place on a battleground as I was slashing demons in half. "I could have gathered," I responded, thinking of the numerous enemies—including Hiei and Kurama—that he had made his allies in his time as a spirit detective.

"Pay attention already," he reminded me, effectively ending our conversation. I heard another minor explosion from behind me before he finished with, "Your attention span's worse than mine…"

_That's saying something_, I thought to myself, then moved away from Yusuke about a foot or so to attack an Escque that had backed off. It was odd to me that it would retreat at all, no matter how minor—or at least it seemed it until I met my next new adversary.

It was not so much the creature itself that was new, it was the species—I'd never seen it in my experience in the Makaian war this time around, nor heard it described.

When it initially burst through the ground right where the Escque had backed away from, it had no true form; it appeared only to be an explosion of pale earth—no, sand. Then, as soon as I focused on it closely and tried to decide what it was, its shape changed. While it was still impossible to decipher its body from the sand, there were now two scythe-shaped blades slashing toward me. Upon closer inspection as I was dodging them, I decided that they were not stone as I had initially assumed when I saw them, but hardened sand; they almost looked like glass.

My sword swiftly cut the creature in half, and as it fell toward the ground, its weapons and whatever form it had begun to take disintegrated into a pile of sand.

I thought it was over for only the briefest of seconds before I realized that the Escque were still not advancing, keeping away a wary two feet or so from the collapsed pile that had once been a creature. This realization likely saved my feet, as I was still paying enough attention to the sand to realize that the scythes had reformed and had slashed up toward my ankles. I barely missed having my lower limbs cut off.

"Yusuke…!" I cried, now somewhat panicked. "What the hell am I fighting?"

"Probably something bad," he called over his shoulder sarcastically, and I could tell he was too caught up with his own assailants to pay attention to mine just yet.

I decided experimenting was the smartest—and likely my only—choice I had at the moment. Rather than trying again with my sword, which was obviously useless against this being, I summoned a ball of my energy into my palm and slammed it into what I figured would be the creature's chest, if it had one. The writhing mist of sand before me did not collapse this time, only began to slither its way up my arm as though with the intent to encase me within itself.

Now seriously panicking, I waved my arm around madly out of reflex. Amazingly, it worked and the sand dispelled from my arm, spilling gracefully back to the ground. Taking the largest leap back I could without smacking into Yusuke, I put a hand to my chest in a vain attempt to slow down my pounding heart.

What the hell was this thing? I'd seen some crazy critters thus far into my 'career' as something like a substitute spirit detective, but never had I experienced something as silly-seeming as animated sand with a mind of its own. Clearly there was no body beneath it as I had initially decided based on logic, and clearly logic had no precedence over this situation. How was I do defeat a being made of sand that could not be harmed by any weapon I could hurl at it?

"Oh, hell," I heard Yusuke groan from behind me. "Not a freakin' sand demon…I'm totally not qualified to take care of that thing."

"Couldn't you have at least _bluffed_?" I whimpered back to him.

"What the hell for?" he responded indignantly. "Not like it's gonna listen to me if I bluff that I could kill it."

"No, I meant for _me_, jack-ass!" I cried, aware that I was trembling. "I at least want to _think_ I can be saved when I'm about to—" My hands raised of their own accord, and I felt myself calming instantaneously. "—die." I felt my eyes leisurely slide shut, my heart finally slowing to a normal pace. It was the same type of sensation as being charmed, but so much better—and I felt that it was going to help me, not hinder me. A warmth spread through my body, and I felt affection from an outside source seeping into me, as though a spectral being like my guardian was possessing me.

I was aware that energy was gathering into my hands and that the muscles in my arms had become incredibly tight; had they not been so taunt, I realized they would have been flailing off to the side from the pressure within my palms. Frankly, I was amazed my arms had the strength to remain in the same place. Then, just as I picked up on the fact that I was muttering something like a rift-closing spell backwards, my arm shot open and I could feel myself tearing something open even though I had not previously been holding anything.

Once more, I could open my eyes, and as I did, a yawning rift-tear met my sight. My hands were at either side of it and I was aware that I'd somehow opened it myself without consciously intending to. A seemingly endless span of water shone far below the opening, though I did not enter it myself; I recognized that it was intended for me to trick the—what had Yusuke called it?—sand demon into it.

It seemed my job was easy, however, and I'd only needed to open to rift-tear—the creature was already gone through it. It must have leapt at me, I realized, the moment I opened the fissure between worlds and been thrust somewhere else through the other side.

The warmth that had begun to fade from within me entered my body once again, though this time concentrated in my wrists and past into my hands and fingers. There was a faint, navy glow about them, I noticed, and as my wrists crossed with violent speed as though I were forming an x-block, the rift-tear disappeared.

"Shit," Yusuke's voice hissed from behind me, though he sounded delighted. "That's one way to deal with it, I suppose."

I became aware of the fact that the Escque had taken an even larger step away from me even despite the fact that the sand demon was gone. Perhaps in witnessing my strange power—if indeed it had been my own—fear had entered even their witless minds.

I turned to Yusuke blankly, feeling safe putting my back to the Escque thanks to their reaction to me. I fell forward onto one knee as soon as I moved, causing me to realize that opening the rift-tear had drained my body of a substantial amount of power.

"I guess you really are Chichiro's reincarnation after all," Yusuke commented, his hand appearing before my line of sight, outstretched to help me up.

I took it, deciding as I looked up into his face that he'd been impressed by me after seeing that display; for the time being, he'd forgiven my transgressions.

_Chichiro_, my mind echoed after a short moment. The true Chichiro, not my yami, had just possessed me. It was no mere speculation—it was one of those things that I _knew_ was true as soon as my mind conjured the possibility. So I truly wasn't her—at least, not all of her; she had definitely been an outside source of power rather than one that had come from within me.

"Y-yeah," I agreed, realizing Yusuke was still watching me for a response.

"Hey," he noticed aloud, releasing my hand once I'd used his to stand, "they're retreating."

He was right; all of the Escque and demons were now slinking back into their rift—which I also had not noticed 'til right then. They did not fly up, nor did they seem to naturally float up into it; it was like watching them fall backwards, as though someone was rewinding a tape. It was, in fact, one of the most unnatural and eerie things I'd ever witnessed.

"Hiei said we were here to contain the demons and prevent more from coming from the rift, right?" I asked Yusuke.

"Something like that, yeah," he agreed, glancing over at me to see what I was leading into.

"So we're not needed here anymore?"

He grinned widely. "Yeah, go find your demon."

Briefly I felt like smacking him and reminding him of his and Hiei's deal at the karaoke bar, until I realized it had been about my nickname rather than Hiei's. So instead I smirked at him. "How'd you know what I was thinking?"

"'Cause you're a fangirl," he replied, and while it was truly nothing to be proud about, I nodded in agreement with a smile on my face. "I know how you guys think."

"With your fanbase, I suppose so," I responded, my smile widening into a grin. "Where is he?"

"Hey, you're the one who senses him before you even realistically _can_," he reminded me with a shrug. "You tell me."

I'd never tried to find Hiei with my 'ability' before, honestly; not from across worlds, at least. Yet, within half an hour, we were descending down upon what could only have been a recent battlefield, the bodies of demons and entities strewn across the dirt. (I found myself wary of the dirt, now.)

"I assume that the soldiers retreated on your end as well?" was the question that Kurama posed as a greeting, clearly stating that either my display had carried word to this battleground also or it had been a mere coincidence that the Escque we were battling retreated when they did.

"Yeah," Yusuke told him. "There was a God-damned _sand_ demon there. Chichiro here took care of it."

Kurama's reaction of surprise was amusing, but Hiei's was far more so. "Is she alright?" he asked, despite the fact I was standing right in front of him.

"She's fine," Yusuke replied, not sounding annoyed that Hiei was asking despite the evidence being right before him. Rather, the former detective sounded…I suppose the word would be approving. "Obviously she hasn't lost all of Chichiro's powers—she opened a world window right before the thing attacked her; chucked it into a different world where it wouldn't be any danger."

_World window…? _I wondered to myself, but Kurama spoke before I could ask about whether rift-tears had different names or if I'd done something different. "She did?" He glanced toward me. "Were you…" He appeared to consider a moment how to put it delicately so I wouldn't be offended by the question. "Did you do it consciously?"

"No," I admitted. "I mean, I knew I was doing it, but _I_ didn't do it."

"Well, that makes a lot of sense," Yusuke muttered.

Kurama understood much better what I meant. "Did you feel possessed?"

"Kind of, but it was different," I replied, "not like being charmed or like my yami taking over. It was like…somebody was guiding me." I couldn't bring myself to fess up that it had been the spirit of Chichiro that had done it in front of Hiei. It felt as though if I did that, he wouldn't care for me quite as much, knowing I wasn't Chichiro. Or at least she wasn't always a full part of me.

"I see," the fox demon replied thoughtfully, and as he watched me intently for what seemed far too long a time, the idea crossed my mind that he knew what I believed it to have been, that he knew I was not Chichiro. Not fully Chichiro.

Strangely, the idea didn't phase me as much as his gaze, and I found the intensity of it made me look away before he did. I turned away when I realized there was a blush creeping onto my face, for as always, realizing I was blushing only made it worse and I hated for people to realize my face was flushing no matter what the reason. And certainly not because I was just realizing again that my ally was quite good looking.

_He's Kaze's_, I 'reminded' myself, despite the fact that it was silly. It was true she was much more his fan than I was, or at least of his anime self, but she'd never met him before face-to-face or at all, so obviously he was not hers. Besides, he was Tamiko's mate. I still felt better telling myself he was Kaze's, as it deterred me from continuing to notice his good looks better than thinking that he was Tamiko's. As I recalled it, though I had no true memory of it and it was more one of those feelings that I knew was due to an experience in my past life, shadowcats were flexible creatures with their relationships and they often had more than one lover. Tamiko could have been willing to share. Kaze wouldn't have.

I cleared my throat, asking, "Shall we be on our way?"

"Indeed," Kurama agreed, and I recognized that his tone was amused. The blush returned swiftly—he had realized my thoughts…Again. "Yusuke will take you back to the human world," he went on. "Hiei and I have some things to discuss."

I turned abruptly, not caring about my face flushing anymore. "What? You guys are dumping me off again?"

"Ketsue," Hiei addressed me, and as I turned to meet his piercing ruby eyes, I immediately forgot Kurama's looks and felt myself melting inside over the jaganshi once more; the feelings I had for the fox were so much different than what I felt for the fire demon. What I felt for Kurama was merely an appreciation of his good looks; a shallow person could call that a crush, though I supposed that if I put into account his kind personality I definitely could find myself developing a crush on him. But no, what I felt for Hiei was love, something that I would feel no matter what he looked like—though not to say I couldn't appreciate the fact that 'what he looked like' was the finest damned thing I'd ever set eyes on, if I did say so myself. "Cooperate, would you? Kurama's right. But if you'd rather, Yusuke could merely entertain you for a short time and then allow you to join us."

I made a pouting face at him. "I don't like that idea much more. I'll just go back to the human world." Shrugging, I went on, "I'll come find you guys in an hour or so; that should give you time to talk, right?"

"I suppose so," Hiei agreed. His voice clearly advertised that he disliked my version, but I felt that I'd been babysat quite enough for one day. It didn't feel right to have Yusuke be said baby-sitter, anyhow; even if he had forgiven me, and quickly at that, there was no doubt about it that there were certainly other things he'd rather do than keep an eye on me for a grumpy fire demon.

Yusuke escorted me back to the human realm despite, though he set off as soon as I was near my hometown. The time alone felt good, as it gave me the chance to enjoy the night air that had settled over the city near my human home. The chill became more severe as I left the city, heading for the suburbs and the town I lived in during my time in the human world, though I did not mind it and quite enjoyed the further reminder that it was fall. Now that I was in my demon form, I could appreciate the season and the cold without being bitter about it; demons felt cold, but in a different way. Just like with wounds that my body recognized were not life threatening, I noticed it but did not pay it much mind until it was severe.

I had been roughly timing myself as I ran, and as I arrived outside my human house, I decided it had been about half an hour since I'd left Hiei and Kurama. It wouldn't hurt to set out now, I decided. After all, if it had taken me half an hour to get here, it would take the same amount of time to get back, and even if I was a bit early I doubted it would matter.

Figuring it wasn't worth it, I didn't much consider that I'd have wasted an entire hour pointlessly when I arrived back with the two demons. Instead, I decided to be optimistic and regard it as exercise.

The rift-tear I sensed that I needed to take to get to Hiei was different than the one Yusuke and I had arrived through. I figured that meant that the pair of demons I sought had moved, and sure enough, when I came to the place I sensed them in about twenty minutes later, it was the building I had eavesdropped on them from not so long ago. Then, they had been talking about the human I had killed and the investigation following it. This time, they were talking about something else entirely.

Hanging back outside the door and feeling like a jerk for spying on them again, I leaned against the wall to listen to them, stiff and already thinking of an excuse as to why I didn't just walk in. Their conversation interested me, however, so I soon relaxed as I leaned closer to hear what they were saying.

"Her devotion to you never ceases to astound me," Kurama was commenting. "I suppose I should have learned by now to be prepared for it, what with her nearly insane ability to sense you early on, but if what you say is true, I cannot be anything _but_ amazed. She shouldn't have been able to access the Ofuda at all, least of all without consciously doing it."

"It was surprising, to be sure," I heard Hiei agree. "I admit, I was not positive that it was the Ofuda at all at first; regardless of how she feels for me, she should not have been able to do what she did."

I picked up on the fact that they were talking about when Hiei and I had been captured by Atenre and I had been able to use the Ofuda to take Hiei's wounds. I had believed that Hiei had just not been disengaging it anymore then, but I had just accessed it without my knowledge…? I wondered briefly if that had been the same as today when I'd opened the rift-tear using Chichiro's power, but I decided that they were similar, but not the same; I had not felt possessed the former time.

"She did something similar today, you know," Kurama told Hiei, acting as though he quite honestly believed Hiei had not noticed.

Hiei's reply didn't hinder the idea. "Oh?"

"Were you paying attention?" was Kurama's amused response. "She opened a window to another world unconsciously. Her dormant powers are…enough to make me wary, to say the least."

"Hn. She has no idea how to use them; I wouldn't worry."

"That's _why_ I'd worry," Kurama responded kindly. "You should probably speed up her training, or let me help you. You won't be of much use—no offense meant, of course—in teaching her of rifts and portals, after all, being that you cannot demonstrate either."

Hiei did not respond to that, but I heard a rustle of fabric I recognized as a shrug. "She was acting a bit strange today," he brought up moments after.

"A bit? Do you mean when she and Yusuke joined with us?"

Hiei must have agreed with a nod, as he went on, "She couldn't even look you in the eye for very long."

Kurama sounded amused once more as he replied, "So I noticed."

"I believe she somewhat fancies you," Hiei muttered in a low voice, sounding a bit _too_ unconcerned.

"It is merely a child's crush," Kurama replied coolly. "Think nothing of it."

There was silence a moment, then the Jaganshi spoke again in a guarded tone. "A child's crush like the one you had on Chichiro?"

Kurama did not respond immediately. He seemed to mull over how best to speak his mind. Then, he spoke frankly. "No, not entirely. I don't believe her crush is quite so serious."

Hiei gave one of his 'hn'-like laughs, and pressed the subject a bit further. "Well, if you were so _enamored_ with Chichiro, why aren't you jumping at the chance to encourage Ketsue's crush?"

"I loved Chichiro, true," he murmured, and though I could not see his expression, I figured it was softened. But his voice was hard as he continued, "But Ketsue is not Chichiro."

Again, silence swept over them. Then, with suddenness that made me jump the slightest bit, Hiei growled, "And what is that supposed to mean?" in a tone that suggested he was in some way offended.

"Even if you somehow looked over their subtle differences," Kurama said with an undertone of calm disinterest, "surely you _must_ have noticed the larger changes."

"Such as?"

"Such as the fact that she is a _child_, Hiei." Kurama's tone had finally become somewhat gentler, and he no longer seemed angry at the subject or irritated at Hiei's pressing; he almost seemed regretful to have to inform Hiei of whatever else he planned on explaining. "The difference between their skill levels is enormous; Ketsue has great potential, but she has no idea how to go about achieving all that she can with her power. Chichiro would have been a better fit for such impressive energy—she would have known how to use it, not to mention how to guard herself in battle."

His words stung me somewhat. He was acting as though I was a little kid while Chichiro had been some sort of tactical genius; from what I recalled, she was far more a goof-off than I was, and at least—even if I did get injured often—I hadn't been _killed_ just yet. Yet, his words confirmed that he had, indeed, realized what I had about where my new 'ability' had come from so suddenly today.

Surprisingly, the way that Hiei spoke suggested that Kurama's wording had stung him more than myself. "She _is_ Chichiro's reincarnation, fox, whether you choose to accept the concept or not."

Before the fire demon could snarl anything else, Kurama interrupted calmly, "There is no question there. But there is also no question that there is a difference between a reincarnation and the real thing. Hiei…" The demon fox trailed off a moment before continuing in a resigned but somehow gentle way, "_She isn't Chichiro_."

I'd anticipated some sort of retaliation; I had certainly not counted on Hiei walking out so unexpectedly without further word—and straight into me.

I stared at him with a blank sort of horror and prayed that he had not surmised that I'd heard the entire conversation or known what they were talking about. He gave no indication of whether he knew or cared, however, and only regarded me in a silence that felt both bitter and far colder than any words or glares he had ever directed at me. Then, without so much as a 'hn', he turned away from me and continued out of my sight, leaving behind a deep, thoughtful silence and a large, painful knot in my chest.

* * *

**Author's Note: **Yo to anybody still reading this. :3 Sorry I took so freaking long…To be honest, I kind of forgot about it. I've been focusing more on purely original stuff (AKA non-fanfiction) lately since I need to get used to doing stuff that can be published. XD Not to say I'm not considering doing a severe reformation of this tale to make it into one of said original projects and publishing it on its own, but that'll probably only happen once it's done. 


	39. Note: Hiatus Warning

**Author's Note:** Hi! Sorry I've been gone so long! Don't get excited, this isn't a chapter, just an update.

I am still alive and the next chapter has been started, but I've kind of lost interest in fanfiction, to be honest. I still love my storylines and such but I can't seem to get myself to finish a chapter anymore and I've been working like a fiend on my original stories instead.

Tears of the Sun is not dead, though! Fear not! I shall be back. Just…not soon. XD I don't know when, and I'm terribly sorry to just leave you all like this, but fanfiction really just isn't my thing anymore. If worst comes to worst, you'll be able to read the rest of the story once I massacre, remold, revamp and rewrite it into an original instead (i.e. No longer using other people's characters.).

By the way, please don't review this chapter 'cause if/when I do come back to start doing Tears of the Sun again, I plan to take down this note and, y'know, you can only review a chapter once. ;) So if you have something to say (I love hearing responses! Don't be shy! :3) you can PM me instead.

Again, I apologize to any of my readers, and I hope you can be patient. :)

P.S. (Haha, I'm such a dork. Who say P.S. anymore anyway? :P) There's a link in my profile to a new drawing of an entity, if any of y'all would like to see what one looks like. ;)


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